Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 159 



satisfactorily treated ; that it never can be, unless the examiner is 

 well acquainted not only with the language, but also the literature 

 of Greece and Rome, and with at least one type or form of the se- 

 veral Teutonic and Celtic languages. That a slight acquaintance 

 with other forms is also very desirable. That the writer professes 

 to be conversant with Greek, Roman, and Cumbrian literature, and 

 to a certain extent with the Anglo-Saxon, and that he knows some- 

 thing of the Gaelic and Basque tongues. That no examination of 

 indexes can avail, owing to the peculiar character of the Cumbrian 

 tongue, in which a person ignorant of the principles of its grammar 

 might suspect that there was nothing fixed, while, on the contrary, 

 it is the most fixed and indestructible of all languages. That the 

 vocabularies of the Latin and Cumbrian languages are strikingly si- 

 milar, although their grammars are radically different. That the 

 work of comparing the two languages etymologically would be 

 easy, had it not been for the long stay of the Romans in Gaul and 

 Britain, which must be supposed to have made a deep impression 

 upon the language of the natives. That nevertheless many Latin 

 words exist, to the primary meaning of which the Cumbrian scho- 

 lar alone possesses the key, and that a long list of words belonging 

 to such a class must prove that some cognate branch of his language 

 must have entered into the original composition of the Latin tongue. 

 That the strength of the proof must depend upon the extent of the 

 induction. 



2. On the Sources and Composition of the difl^trent kinds of 

 Gamboge. By Dr Christison. 3. On the Botamcal 

 Origin of Gamboge. By Dr Graham. 



Gamboge was first made known by Clusius about the commence- 

 ment of the seventeenth century, as a concrete juice from China. 

 About the middle of the same century, Bontius conceived he had 

 traced it to a particular species of Euphorbia^ growing in Java and 

 in Siam ; from the latter of which countries the whole gamboge of 

 commerce was at that time obtained. About the close of that cen- 

 tury Hermann announced that gamboge was produced by two spe- 

 cies of trees growing in Ceylon, which have been since often con- 

 founded together, but which are now designated by the names 

 Garcinia Gambogia, and Stalagmitis Gamhogioides. About the mid- 

 dle of last century, gamboge was referred by Linnaeus to the for- 

 mer of these plants, and his reference was generally admitted. 

 But about thirty years later. Professor Murray of Gottingen con- 

 ceived he had trace<l it satisfactorily from the specimens collected 

 by Koenig in Ceylon, and information obtained by the same bo- 

 tanist in Siam, to a new species which he called Stalagmitis garri' 

 hogioides. 



Dr Graham shows, from specimens and drawings sent from Cey- 

 lon, both by Mrs Colonel Walker to himself, and by David Ander- 

 son Blair, Esq. to the late Dr Duncan, that the plant producing 

 Ceylon gamboge is neither Garcinia gambogia^ as Linnseus thought, 



