liv INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. 



value to the Honourable East India Company. Captain John 

 Barnes, the military surveyor, undertook to explore all those 

 places where the lichens are to be found, and to collect specimens 

 for the purpose of being sent to England. In his researches lie 

 discovered seven different sorts: upon which he made the follow- 

 ing report. 



" Having read that the Lichen rocella (which for the purposes of 

 dyeing affords a very beautiful and valuable tincture called Archill) 

 is imported into England, from the Canary and Cape de Verd 

 Islands, and consideiing that St. Helena, from its similar situation, 

 might also produce it, I have with the approbation of the Hon. 

 the Governor, made a collection of lichens, &c. in the hope that 

 amongst them it may be found ; especially as it appears from the 

 records of the island in the year 1743, that the true archill had 

 been sent from hence to England, and was highly approved of. I 

 cannot take upon me to assert that my search has been perfectly 

 successful, but from every information I can obtain, I am induced 

 to believe that it has not been entirely the contrary. I have not 

 had time to make experiments on the lichens collected, nor indeed 

 could I have satisfactorily depended upon the result of any, had 

 they been made so as to have determined which was archill, 

 carried on as they must necessarily have been with considerable 

 difficulty, both for the want of proper apparatus, and scientific 

 skill and experience on my part. It will afford me the highest 

 possible satisfaction, if any of the present collection may prove at 

 all conducive to the interests of the Honourable Company. 



The package and box, No. 1, contains a lichen which is con- 

 ceived to be a species of rocella : this conjecture is strengthened 

 by the information of a gentleman, a native of this island, who 

 points it out as the same sort which was approved of at home : it 

 grows in abundance on the rocks near the sea, and especially at 



