252 TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



was not published till 1705, twelve years after his 

 death, was for a long time the acknowledged stand- 

 ard to which all conchological wi'iters referred. His 

 most extensive work, however, was the " Hortus 

 Amboinense," which was only rescued from the 

 Dutch archives and published at the late date of 

 forty-eight years after his death. It contains the 

 names and careful descriptions of the plants of this re- 

 gion, their flowering seasons, their habitats, their uses, 

 and the modes of caring for those that are cultivated. 

 When we consider that, in his time, neither botany 

 nor zoology had become a science, and consider, more- 

 over, the amount and the accuracy of the information 

 he gives us, we agree with his contemporaries in 

 giving him the high but well-merited title of " the 

 Indian Pliny." 



