NATURAL 
fhot up {pikes about fix feet high. 
Accompanying this, I fend you a 
drawing of the plant in flower, and 
of the dried roots, in which the 
natural appearance is tolerably pre- 
ferved. 
« Tt is called by the natives Te- 
rankus, which means literally, in the 
Hindoo language, fever-reftrainer, 
from the virtues they attribute to it 
in that difeafe. They infufe abont 
a dram of it in half a pint of hot 
water, with a fmall quantity of 
black pepper.: This infufion ferves 
for one dofe, and is repeated three 
times a day. It is efteemed a pow- 
erful medicine in all kinds of fevers, 
whether continued or intermittent. 
I have not made any trial of it my- 
felf; but fhall certainly take the 
firft opportunity of doing fo. 
« The whole plant has a ftrong 
aromatic odour ; but both the fmell 
and the virtues refide principally 
in the hufky roots, which in chew- 
ing have a bitter, warm, pungent 
tafte, accompanied with fome de- 
gree of that kind of glow in the 
mouth, which cardamoms  occa- 
fion.” 
Befides the drawing, a dried {pe- 
cimen has been fent, which was in 
fuch good prefervation as to enable 
Sir Jofeph Banks, P.R. S. to afcer- 
tain it, by the botanical characters, 
to be a fpecies of Andropogon, dif- 
ferent from any plant that has ufu- 
ally been imported under the name 
of Nardus, and different from any 
of that genus hitherto defcribed in 
botanical fyftems. 
There is great reafon, however, 
to think, that it is the true Nardus 
Indica of the ancients. The cir- 
cumftance, in the account above 
recited, of its being difcovered in 
an unfrequented country, from the 
odour it exhaled by being trod up- 
HISTORY. 67 
on by the elephants and horfes, cor- 
refponds, in a ftriking manner, with 
an occurrence related by Arrian, 
in his Hiftory of the Expedition of 
Alexander the Great into India. It 
is there mentioned, lib. vi. cap. 
22. that, during his march through 
the defarts of Gadrofia, the air was 
perfumed by the Spikenard, which 
was trampled under foot by the 
army; and that the Pheenicians, 
who accompanied the expedition, 
collected large quantities of it, as 
well as of myrrh, in order to carry 
them to their own country, as‘ ar- 
ticles of merchandife, 
Account of fome extraordinary Effects 
of Lighining. By William Wi- 
thering, M.D. F.R.S. From the 
Same. 
ERMIT me to requeft the 
attention of the Royal Society, 
whilft I mention a few facts relative 
to a thunder-cloud, the lightning 
from which fufed a quantity of 
quartzofe matter. - 
This cloud formed in the fouth, 
in the afternoon of Sept. 3, 1789, 
and took its courfe nearly due 
north, In its paflage it fet fire to 
a field of ftanding corn; but the 
rain prefently extinguifhed the fire, 
Soonafterwards the lightning ftruck, 
‘an oak tree, in the earl of Aylef- 
ford’s park at Packington. 
The height of this tree is 39 feet, 
including its trunk, which is 13 feet. 
It did not ftrike the higheft bough, 
but that which projected fartheft 
fouthward. Aman, who had taken 
fhelter againft the north fide of the 
tree, was ftruck dead inftantane: 
oufly, his cloaths fet on fire, and 
the mofs (/ichen) on the trunk of 
the tree, where the back of his head 
F 2 had 
