THE ORANGE GENUS. 339 



his ' TraiM du Citrus,' at Paris, in 1811. He 

 maintains that the orange instead of being found in 

 the north of Africa, in Syria, or even in Media, 

 whence the Romans must have obtained their " Me- 

 dian Apples," was not in that part of India which is 

 watered by the Indus at the time of Alexander the 

 Great's Indian expedition, as it is not mentioned by 

 Nearchus among the fruits and productions of that 

 country. It is not mentioned either by Arrian, by 

 Diodorus, or Pliny; and even so late as the year 

 1300, Pietro di Cuescengi, a senator of Bologna, 

 who wrote on agriculture and vegetable productions, 

 does not take the least notice of the orange. 



The first distinct mention of oranges is by the 

 Arabs; and Avicenna (book v.) not only describes 

 oleum de citrangula (oil of oranges) and oleum de 

 citrangulorum seminibus (oil of orange seeds,) but 

 speaks of citric acid (salt of lemons,) which is con- 

 tained in all the genus, though more abundantly in 

 that species from which it got its common English 

 name. 



According to Galessio, the Arabs, when they pene- 

 trated to India, found the orange tribes there, further 

 in the interior than Alexander had penetrated; and 

 they brought them thence by two routs: the sweet 

 ones, now called China oranges, through Persia to 

 Syria, and thence to the shores of Italy and the 

 south of France; and the bitter oranges, called in 

 the commerce of England, Seville oranges, by Arabia, 

 Egypt, and the north of Africa to 'Spain. 



It does not appear that the orange was originally 

 a Chinese fruit, as it is not mentioned by Marco Polo, 

 the father of modern travellers, who is so circumstan- 

 tial in describing all the other wonders of that 

 country. 



Now these facts certainly go far to shew that the 

 orange was not known to the ancients either in Eu- 



