170 NOTICE OF BOTANICAL PUBLICATIONS. - 
principal requisites will be found wanting. His views are, 
, however, so well supported, and the contradictory evidence 
on which they are made to rest, so ingeniously explained 
away, that much difficulty must have been experienced in 
detecting his errors, had not careful and actual examination 
of the circumstances under which the plant is procured in its — x 
native country, enabled the Deputation of the Tea Committee, — 
who went to examine the spots, to point out the very — 
erroneous nature of the opinions advocated by Dr Abel, 
which Mr Royle had adopted and supported with such à 
fruitless expenditure of ingenious reasoning. From the in- - 
vestigations of the Deputation, it appears that so far from the 
Tea being a plant seeking the cool climate, clear sky, and 
dry soil, afforded by the combined operation of elevation, 
free exposure to light, and the rapid drainage of alpine soils, 
that the very opposite of all these are the circumstances in 
which, in its native country, it seems to delight. There it T 
was found in mounds, but little elevated above inundation, — 
but in a porous absorbent soil, under the shade of trees 0 - 5 
dense, that the rays of the sun could scarcely penetrate; and 
what is still more remarkable, was confined to one side of the 
valley of Assam, so subject to be covered with thick mists and 
fogs during the cool season that it was estimated to enjoy — 
less sunshine by 2 hours than the other, where the plant was- 
never seen, though in the enjoyment of a clear sky, bright 
sunshine, and a temperature greatly reduced by the vicinity 
of snow-capped hills. The climate of Assam all accounts agree 
in representing as very humid, with a moderate range 
` temperature, rainy wet weather prevailing through the greater 
part of the year, and often dark and foggy in the intervals. 
Mr M‘Clelland, who in company with Dr Griffith, was em- 
ployed to visit and report on the Tea districts in Assam, thus 
writes regarding the first Tea Colony visited by the deputa- 
tion near Caju. * On entering, he says, ‘the forests, the 
first remarkable thing that presented itself here was the 
peculiar irregularity of the surface, which in places was E 
excavated into natural trenches, and in other situations raised 
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