ESSAY ON INDIAN CORN. 149 



partim albo," — under the name of meliga. Crescenzio describes 

 the method of caltivating this grain, which is very nearly the same 

 as that of cultivating maize at the present day. The Portuguese 

 writer, Sata Roza de Viterbo, also, asserts that it was known in the 

 thirteenth century.i "VYhatever may be said of its origin, it seems 

 to have been first introduced into Turkey, from whence it made its 

 way to the West. This is shown by the names which have been 

 given to it in Europe, several of them indicating that it came through 

 Turkey, But according to some Spanish authors, it was brought 

 into Spain by the Arabs.'-^ A Chinese writer of the middle of the 

 sixteenth century, draws the figure of the maize as known in China, 

 which is said to correspond with some species of maize now known. 

 Some travellers who have visited the Asiatic isles, have inferred that 

 it was cultivated about the equator, in that vicinity, from great anti- 

 quity, and that it passed from these isles into China, and thence to 

 the interior about the Himilaya. John Crawford, who lived for 

 years in the island of Java, says : " Maize is, next to rice, the 

 most important agricultural product among the great tribes of the 

 Indian Archipelago." Mr. Rifaud asserts that some kernels were 

 found in the sarcophagus of a mummy in Thebes, in 1819. The 

 well known orientalist, D'Herbelot, mentions 3 a passage of Mirk- 

 ond, a Persian historian, which might lead us to suppose that maize 

 was known to the old world, long before the discovery of the new. 



Now the question arises, whether the meliga described in the old 

 chart of Incisa alluded to, was identical with the zea mais ? Bona- 

 fous says on this point, that the description of the meliga from the 

 East corresponds to maize, but that according to the learned author 

 of the Flore d'Egypte, in the description published by order of Na- 

 poleon, it can equally well be applied to the millet of India, in which 

 the grains pass in some of the varieties from yellow to white. But 

 Cardan says,4 distinctly, that maize strongly resembles the plant 

 known in Italy as melica, or sorghum, which is the meliga of Incisa. 

 So of several other authorities, as Matthioli and Georges, de Turre. 

 Moreover, Bonafous himself declares that it is evident, to look at it, 



1. Bonafous Hist, du Mais. 



2. Valcarcel, Agricuhura General y gohierno de la casa del campo. Valencia. 1768. 



3. Biblioteque Orientale. 1778. Tom. iii., p, 137. 



4. De Subtilitate. Lib. xxi. p. 389 Basil, 1553. 



