332 NATURAL SCIENCE. Nov. 



lion in Somali-land that his life was for some time in danger, is, we 

 are glad to state, home again, and well on the way to recovery. The 

 latest news from Mr. Scott-Elliott is still that published in our last 

 number. An account of his march from Uganda to Ruwenzori has 

 been published in the Geographical Journal, and a letter giving some 

 notes as to the flora of Ruwenzori has been printed in Nature. As 

 more is expected from this expedition than from any other in the 

 field, great anxiety will be felt for Mr. Scott-Elliott's safety during 

 his return march to the coast. 



Wasted Wealth in India. 



The September number of the Kew Bulletin contains some 

 interesting extracts from a memorandum on the Resources of British 

 India recently prepared for the Indian Government by Dr. G. Watt. 

 The British India of the memorandum covers an area of 699 million 

 acres, with a population of about 222^^ millions. The agricultural 

 products are considered under six heads — Food-crops, such as wheat, 

 rice, pulses, sugar, spices, etc. ; Oil-seed; Fibres; Dyeing and tanning 

 materials ; Drugs and narcotics, etc., including tea and coffee ; and 

 Miscellaneous, such as cutch, lac, indiarubber, and other wild 

 products. A propos of the last-named group, Dr. Watt lays consider- 

 able stress on the neglect of the wild or semi-wild animals and plants 

 as a source of wealth. India has borrowed far more than she has 

 given, and the improvements of the future, it is suggested, should 

 lie as much as possible in the path of natural selection and evolution 

 of indigenous materials and systems. These can be counted by the 

 hundreds, and India need not look to foreign countries for new crops 

 while she has a long list of unexploited products which are running to 

 waste in every lane and jungle. An extension of the effort to bring 

 these hitherto unknown products (unknown, that is, to European 

 commerce) into a position of definite recognition is more worthy of 

 serious consideration than the attempt to acclimatise the plants of 

 other countries. The people might be encouraged to grow as hedges 

 round their fields, not useless plants with the sole recommendation of 

 rapidity of growth or efficient protection, but bushes valuable as fuel, 

 or as sources of dyes, tans, fibres, and the like. Already, in the 

 Bombay Presidency, miles of roadsides have been planted with the 

 useful and ornamental Cassia auriculata ; but in Western and Central India 

 thousands of square miles are overrun by scrubby bushes of Anona 

 squamosa, serving at present no useful purpose, though the fibre from 

 the bark might be valuable. Bauhinia Vahlii, of which the fibre can 

 be bleached and dyed by the same processes as wool, is a common 

 climber in the jungles of the lower hills, and might, at little cost, be 

 cultivated over rocky country at present next to useless. 



