lii A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF 
an error' that has been followed in most works on Indian Botany. Smith in 1806 
proposed the recognition of a second Buchanania in Hamilton's genus Sussodia; finding, 
however, between the time that the plate was prepared and the text was printed, that 
Sprengel had already established a genus Buchanania, Smith in the text replaced Hamilton's 
name Sussodia by the name Colebrookea. Hamilton in 1796 wrote, as we have seen, а 
detailed account of the vegetation of Burma which he sent to Banks, to whom the 
Court of Directors һай given all the specimens and drawings obtained during the Embassy. 
Part of this paper, with the corresponding drawings, Banks selected for publication as 
an integral portion of the work of Symes in 1500. In the title to this paper and 
in the prefatory note, for which Banks is responsible, we find по acknowlelgment that 
Hamilton was the author either of the names or the descriptions. , The note is 
as follows :— 
" The plants of which the following descriptions and figures are given, have been selected by the 
President of the Royal Society asthe most rare and curious among а copious and valuable collection 
made by Dr. Buchanan, who transmitted to the Court of Directors an Hortus Siccus in excellent 
preservation, together with delineations of each plant, executed on the spot.” 
Symes in his preface further categorically states that Banks provided the descriptions. 
Roxburgh, who knew of Hamilton’s manuscript—as a matter of fact extracts from it 
exist in the Roxburghian correspondence in the library of the Caleutta Botanic Garden— 
was aware, at first hand, of the true facts of the case, and in the Flora Indica consistently 
attributes the species first published in Symes’ work to Hamilton (Buchanan), and not to 
Banks* In this Roxburgh has been generally followed by subsequent writers; but as 
Hamilton has nowhere himself claimed the authorship of these species, and as the state- 
ment of Symes is precise, the citation usually adopted is technically erroneous. 
Two important papers regarding the Burma journey were written while Hamilton was 
stationed at Puttahaut in 1796, and published in the Asiatick Researches in 1798 and 1799.5 
They deal with the languages, the religion and the literature of Burma; they are of much 
intrinsic interest and bear moreover the marks of previous extensive and critical study. 
In the paper on the religion and literature of Burma there is a curious and important error, 
the origin of which is explained by Colebrooke,” where Hamilton states that there is a 
reference to Buddha in the Vedas, : 
The geographical results of Hamilton’s researches in Burma, which were, at the time 
that they appeared, of very great importance, were mostly published, after Hamilton’s 
' This is not the only error that has escaped the editor of Roxburgh's Flora Indica ; 
printer of Launzan into Larmzon in Roxburgh’s citation, has escaped the notice of the proof. 
the omission of Hamilton’s name for the tree, and of his interesting economic information 
the pages of Kurz's Forest Flora of Burma but from those of Sir G. Watt's Dictionary 
«f India. 
? Exotic Botany. її. t. 115. 
° Descriptions of Ware apd Curious planis selected by the President of the Royal Society ; 
ed i. p. 473. : 
* Roxburgh : Flora Indica. iii, 142; iii 696, 
* Here, as sometimes in other matters, law and equity are at variance. 
two the writer would suggest that, now that the whole facts of the case are known, the species described in Symes’ 
Embassy be cited as of Buchanan and Banks conjointly : e.g. Heritiera Fumes Buch, & Banks in Symes: Embassy ed i 
* À Comparative Vocabulary of some of the Languages spoken in the Burma Empire: Asiatick Research Dik, 
Religion and Literature of the Buriaas: Asiatick Researches, vi. 75 Ov the 
2 Life of Н.Т. Colebrooke, by his son Sir Т. E. Colebrooke, р. 261. 
the conversion by the 
reader and may explain 
regarding it, not only from 
of the Economie Products 
in Symes: Embassy 
As the best means of reconciling the 
