BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
Major MADDEN on the Botany, &c., of the Turaee and Outer Moun- 
tains of KUMAOON. 
It is delightful to mark the rapid progress now making in our 
knowledge of Indian botany, particularly in the northern and elevated 
regions, throughout, we may say, the whole chain of the Himalaya, 
a mountain range, forming, as it were, the boundary line between 
India proper al is vast table land of Thibet, s € from 
longitude 75? to 96° east, and in latitude from 28° to 35° north, 
covering an extent of 1,600 miles, and including the dina mountains 
of the world. The first great impulse was given by Drs. Wallich, Royle, 
and Falconer, and Mr. Griffith; and we have lately been gratified by 
an inspection of a portion of a very fine collection made during the ex- 
tended travels of Capt. Munro, 39th Inf., in various parts of this range and 
from considerable elevations. Mr. Edgeworth is still devoting much time 
to the botany of this country. At the present moment we are happy to be 
able to speak of three journeys of great interest, undertaken at three 
widely different points, and which cannot fail to add immensely to our 
knowledge of the vegetation, and the geographical distribution of species 
and genera, of that region. First, that conducted by Dr. Thomas 
Thomson; second, that of Dr. Hooker, the one at the western, the 
other almost at the eastern extremity of the range; and thirdly, that of 
Major Madden, Bengal Artillery, in a country almost exactly at equal 
distances from the two, namely * Turaee and the outer mountains 
of Kumaoon," between the Kosilla and the Thalee rivers. Notes on the 
two former of these journeys are commenced, and will be continued, in 
the pages of our periodical. It is now our agreeable duty to mention 
that of Major Madden, briefly, however ; and nothing more is necessary, 
for happily his own account is published in the Journal of the Asiatic 
Society, for 1848: the first part, all that we have yet seen, in the 
May number. 
This portion occupies 100 pages of chiefly botanical matter, and 
comprises the result of observations made during several excursions 
om Almorah to the mountains in question, perfo in the cold 
season or spring. During, and after, the rainy seasons, when vegeta- 
VOL. I. I 
