a general sale out-right of all the waste land in 

 India. 



Again, it is an implied condition of mercantile 

 transactions, that both parties, buyer and seller, know, 

 or are supposed to know, both the intrinsic value of 

 the commodity to be sold, and their own inter- 

 ests. Now, independent of situation in regard to a 

 market, &c., a necessary condition to determining 

 the value of any land, is a knowledge of its natural 

 properties, or to use more definite terms, its capa- 

 bilities for production ; and to do this, plainly, some 

 knowledge of the nature of the soil and its mineral 

 ^ wealth are necessary. /The geological survey of 

 s . India has not extended to a hundredth part of the 

 \ uncultivated part of the country.* It is only the 

 other day that the climates of Assam and Cachar, 

 were looked upon as deadly to human life, and their 

 soils as capable only of producing dense jungle, and 

 the rankest vegetation. The capabilities of the soils 

 of much of the great wastes of India are as little 

 known, as those of these now coveted lands were 

 then. No one then can possibly be in a position to 

 say what is their value. Hence, probably, the de- 

 termination to sell them by auction. But here, 

 again, we are forced on the horns of a dilemma, for 

 it has been already shown, that, in the absence of 



* A more important reason for not selling wastes now, is 

 / the progress of railroads, which will, of course, give a very 

 high value to all culturable wastes in their vicinity, which may 

 now be worth nothing. January, 1867. 



