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VIII. Account of the Baxyan-Tree, or Ficus Indica, as found in the 

 a72cient Greek and Roman Authors. By George Henry Noehden, LL.D. 

 Secretary R.A.S. F.R.S. <§r. 



Read March 6, 1824. 



Among the objects of Natural History, which attracted the attention, and 

 excited the wonder of the followers of Alexander the Great, when that 

 illustrious conqueror carried his victorious arms across the Indus, was the 

 Banyan, or Indian Fig-tree. It is well known that that extraordinary 

 man, whose talents, as well as achievements, have certainly no parallel in 

 history, was generally imbued with a love of science, and, as Pliny expresses 

 it, inflamed with a passion for Natural History.* To his great preceptor, 

 Aristotle, he had delegated the care of digesting, and elucidating, the vast 

 materials that were collected, in the king's progress through a quarter of 

 the globe, which, to the inhabitants of Europe, was absolutely a new world. 

 It is to be presumed that, by the orders of Alexander, not only specimens 

 of natural productions were looked for, but that observations were also 

 made, on the spot, by competent persons, on such objects as could not be 

 removed. Both the one and the other were placed at the disposal of 

 Aristotle, who by dint of his powerful mind, and with the assistance of 

 an immense fund of knowledge, brought the rude materials, furnished to 

 him, into a system of scientific arrangement. According to Pliny, as 



* Pliny speaks, in particular, of one branch of natural history, namely, zoology, in the culti- 

 vation of which, he says, Alexander had taken a warm interest : but no remarkable object 

 could be indifferent to such a mind. Nat. Hist. VIII. 17. Vol. II. p. 79. ed. Bip. Alexandra 

 Magna rege iiiflammato cupidine animalium naturas noscendi, delegataque hoc commentatioiie 

 Aristotdi, mmmo in omni doctrina viro, aliquot millia hominum in totius Asia Graciteque tractu 

 parere jussa, omnium quos venatus, ancupia, piscatusque alebant : quibusque vivaria, armenta, 

 piscina:, aviaria, in cura erant : ne quid usquam gentium ignoraretiir nb eo ; quos percontando 

 quiuquaginlajerme volumina ilia prcEclara de animcdibus condidit. The immense sums of money, 

 which the king, besides, bestowed upon Aristotle, for the prosecution of his researches, are men. 

 tioned by Athenaeus IX. p. 398, &c. Casaub. (IX. c. 13. T. III. p. 447. ed. Schweigh.) This 

 grant of money /Elian (Var. Hist. IV. 19.) by a mii-take, attributes to Philip, the father of 

 Alexander. .See Bulile in Aristotelis Vita (Vol. I. Oper. Aristotei.), p. 96 ; and ScIJegel's 

 Indische Bibliothck. Vol. I. p. 160. 



