442 ILLUSTRATION OF THE BOTANY OF [Alege 
goitre stick); and, from fragments brought by Dr. Gillies, who gave Dr. Greville this 
information, the plant is decided to belong to the type Laminacee, and is probably a 
species of Laminaria.” It is equally interesting and remarkable, that the natives 
of India along the foot of the Himalayas, where goitre is prevalent, should employ 
a leaf, which they describe as being brought from a great distance, and which they 
call gillur ke putta, or goitre-leaf, and consider efficacious for the cure of that com- 
plaint; this also seems to be that of a sea-weed, the specimens, which I am at 
present unable to find, resembled the crumbled fragments of a leaf of Potamogeton 
natans, but they are as likely to be those of a Fucus, brought from a distant sea, 
and which I would suggest as an interesting subject of inquiry to be traced out in India. 
Having treated of the various Families of Plants which constitute the Flora of the 
Plains and Mountains of India; noticed their Geographical distribution, especially 
as connected with Climate, not only in India, but in other parts of the world; speci- 
fied the various Genera, and enumerated the several Species which are also found 
elsewhere; and thence having drawn the necessary inferences respecting the Culture 
in India of the valuable plants of other countries, similar in climate or vegetation ; 
treated of the Literary History of several Indian Products mentioned by Classical 
Authors, and in detail of the Cultivation of a few of the more important, as Tea, Cotton, 
and Tobacco; besides paying especial attention to the Properties of Plants as connected 
with Structure, and pointing out those which are suitable to an English climate. 
The Author feels that he has endeavoured to the best of his abilities to fulfil the 
promises which were held out in the original Prospectus of the Work; as he has 
thus displayed the vast internal resources of India, as well in what is ornamental as in 
whatever is useful or necessary for the comforts of the people, or the wants of a great 
empire. It was then stated, that ‘in no part of the British dominions were the riches 
and variety of the productions of nature greater, or the forms more interesting, than in 
the Himalayan Mountains, which form so stupendous a barrier between the dominions 
of the British and the territories of the Chinese. Their western bases resting on the 
arid plains of India abound in all the forms, both of animal and vegetable life, which 
are characteristic of tropical countries, while their gradually elevated slope, which 
Supports vegetation at the greatest heights known in the world, affords at intermediate 
elevations all the varieties of temperature adapted to the production of forms, which 
are considered peculiar to very different latitudes ;” and as no connected and illustrated 
view had been published of the « progressive transitions, from the productions which 
are characteristic of the plains of India, and which exist at the bases of these moun- 
tains, to those found at different elevations on their acclivities, where a gradual 
approach is made to the forms common in Europe, America, and Japan,” it 
seemed ‘‘ advisable, while Sigs the appearance and distribution of the different 
families 
