the Gamboge of Commerce. 109 



Remarks on the preceding Paper by Dr Graham. 



The botany of Southern India is in excellent keeping. The 

 zeal of Colonel and Mrs Walker is unwearied, and their exer- 

 tions are bringing to our knowledge a host of new and inte- 

 resting plants. The enthusiasm of my excellent friend Dr 

 Wight is not second to theirs, and, fortunately for the science, 

 in pursuit of which he makes extraordinary efforts, the field of 

 his operations is much more extended. Every thing which he 

 writes will and ought to be received by botanists with defe- 

 rence; and therefore I am anxious to correct one or two mis-, 

 conceptions into which, from the position in which he is, he has 

 very naturally fallen. His knowledge of my opinions was, at 

 the time he wrote these observations, derived solely from a let- 

 ter which I had written to him, before I was myself acquainted 

 with all the arguments upon which my opinion might be sup- 

 ported. If he had read the more detailed account which I 

 was, subsequently, able to publish in the Companion to the Bo- 

 tanical Magazine, vol. ii. p. 193, I feel certain that his obser- 

 vations would not have appeared in their present shape. 



The points stated to be at issue between my friend and me, 

 are these : — 1st, He does not think me right in considering the 

 tree of which Mrs Walker sent me specimens and drawings, as 

 the only one that produces gamboge fit to be used in the arts. 

 2d, He does not think Mrs Walker's plant the one which pro- 

 duces the true Ceylon gamboge. Sd, He thinks the facts ad- 

 duced by me are not sufficient to invahdate his and Dr Ar- 

 nott's position, that the Xanthochymus ovalifoUus is the only in- 

 digenous plant in Ceylon that produces gamboge fit to be used 

 in the arts. 4th, That the tree from which my specimens were 

 procured, is in Ceylon of exotic origin. Now, my friend will 

 find, that, even in my letter to him, correctly, I am sure, quoted 

 by him, I never said that my plant was the only one that pro- 

 dtices gamboge Jit to be used in the arts; and in my subsequent 

 paper in the Companion to the Botanical Magazine, I expressly 

 guard against that supposition, thinking it very probable that 

 there may be others. I only say that this plant does yield 

 gamboge fit to be used in the arts, and that I had received 

 perfectly good gamboge taken from it. We do differ on the 



