134 



STORAX. 



Island of 

 Cobross. 



1857. Alston, 1 Me" rat and De Lens, 2 Martiny, 3 Guibourt, 4 Pereira, 5 

 Eoyle, 6 &c. 



Hill, indeed, quaintly remarks, " It is a little unlucky that 

 nobody has given us any description of this Rosa Afallas" 

 But is this the only ambiguity ? Let us first ask, Does there 

 exist any island of Cobross at the upper end of the Eed Sea ? 



Thanks to the excellent chart of the Ked Sea made from the 

 surveys of Messrs. Moresby and Carless in 1830-33, and to the 

 minute Sailing Directions for the Eed Sea, both published by 

 the Hon. East India Company, we have a mass of very exact 

 and positive information relating to its coasts, and to its islands 

 from the largest, down to the very rocks and shoals. Now 

 Petiver makes his island of Cobross to be " near Cadess, which is 

 3 days journey from Suez" To what distance we ought to con- 

 sider this to be equivalent, 1 know not ; but it is evident from 

 the chart already referred to, that there is no island in the Red 

 Sea nearer to Suez than about 160 miles. Neither this island, 

 nor any other in the Red Sea, bears the name of Cobross, or any 

 other name which can be supposed to represent it, that is, so 

 far as my researches have gone, and I have taken much pains in 

 investigating the subject. 



Again, are there any islands in the Red Sea extensively 

 wooded, as Petiver's account would lead us to suppose? On 

 this point, the minute information in the Sailing Directions, is 

 entirely of a negative character. 



Distrusting my own judgment in such a question, I applied 

 to John Walker, Esq., Geographer to the Hon. East India 

 Company, and to the Rev. Charles Forster, author of the His- 

 torical Geography of Arabia, gentlemen whose acquaintance 

 with sources of information on such matters, might, I thought, 

 suggest some explanation of Petiver's statement : but neither of 

 them has been able to throw any light upon it. 



1 Lectures on the Materia Medico, (1770), vol. ii. p. 418. 

 a Dictionnaire de Matiere Medicate, t. iv. (1832), p. 128. 



3 Encyklop. d. med.-pharm. Nat. u. Rohwaarenk. bd. L (1843) p. 94. 



4 Histoire des Drogues Simples, t. ii. (1849), p. 294. 

 8 Elem. of Mat. Med. vol. ii. (1850) p. 1216. 



6 Manwl of Mat. Med. (1853) p. 639. 



Doubts on 

 the subject. 



