VOL. LXXIX.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 639 



cumstances, when taken collectively, would seem to render it very probable, that 

 the formation of hair and teeth in the ovarium does not necessarily depend on- a 

 connection between a male and a female, as has been the common opinion, 

 but arises from some action within the ovarium itself, which is imitative of 

 generation. 



IX. On the Vegetable and Mineral Productions oj Boutan and Thibet. By Mr, 

 Robert Saunders, Surgeon at Boglepoor in Bengal, p. 79* 



Road to Buxaduar, May 11 and \2, 1783. The tract of country from Bahar 

 to the foot of the hills contains but few plants that are not common to Bengal. 

 Pine-apples, mango-tree, jack and saul timber, are frequently to be met with in 

 the forests and jungles. Many orange-trees towards the foot of the hills, of a very 

 good sort, and bearing much fruit. Saw a few lime-trees, and found 3 different 

 species of the sensitive plant. One species is used medicinally by the natives of 

 Bengal in fevers ; it is a powerful astringent and bitter ; another is the species from 

 which Terra Japonica is made, a medicine the history of which we are but lately 

 made acquainted with. The 3d species is well known as the sensitive plant, and 

 common in Bengal. 



The country, from Bahar to the foot of the mountains, to which we approach 

 without any ascent, is rendered one of the most unhealthy parts of India, from a 

 variety of causes. The whole, a perfect flat, is at all times wet and swampy, with 

 a luxuriant growth of reeds, long grass, and underwood, in the midst of stagnated 

 water, numerous frogs and insects. The exhalations from such a surface of 

 vegetable matter and swamps, increased by an additional degree of heat from the 

 reflection of the hills, affect the air to a considerable extent, and render it highly 

 injurious to strangers and European constitutions. The thermometer at the foot 

 of the hill, mid-day 86°, fell to 78° at 2 o'clock, the time we reached Buxaduar, 

 and that hour of the day when it is generally highest. 



Buxaduar, May 12 to 21. Many of the plants peculiar to Bengal require 

 nursing at Buxaduar. There is one very good banian tree. In the jungles, met 

 with the ginger, and a very good sort of yam ; saw some pomegranate-trees in 

 good preservation ; shallots in great perfection ; a species of the lychnis, arum, 

 and asclepias, natives of more northern situations, and of little use ; a bad sort of 

 rasberry, and a species of the gloriosa. The plantains in use below do not thrive 

 here. In the jungles they have a plantain-tree producing a very broad leaf, with 

 which they cover their huts; but the fruit is not eaten. From the 15th to the 

 22d, the rains were almost incessant at Buxaduar. Our people became unhealthy, 



tercourse between the sexes, it becomes difficult to account for this peculiarity in them, unless by 

 supposing that they have a greater aptitude of running into such a process, than the other parts of 

 the body. — Orig. 



3 z 2 



