﻿XXVIII. 



ON THE SPIKENARD OF THE 4NTIENTS. 



BY THE PRESIDENT. 



JT is painful to meet perpetually with words that 

 convey no distinct ideas ; and a natural desire of 

 avoiding that pain excites us often to make inquiries, 

 the result of which can have no other use than to give 

 us clear conceptions. Ignorance is to the mind what 

 extreme darkness is to the nerves : both cause an 

 uneasy sensation; and we naturally love knowledge 

 as we love light, even when we have no design of ap- 

 plying either to a purpose essentially useful. This is 

 intended as an -apology for the pains which have 

 been taken to procure a determinate answer to a 

 question of no apparent utility, but which ought to 

 be readily answered in India : *' What is Indian Spike- 

 nard ?" All agree that it is an odoriferous plant, the 

 best sort of which, according to Ptolemy, grew about 

 Rangamritica or Rangamati, and on the borders of 

 the country now called Butan. It is mentioned by 

 Diotcorides, whose work I have not in my possession ; 

 but his description of it must be very imperfect,^ ince 

 neither Liunaus nor any. of his disciples pretend to 

 class it with certainty ; and, in the latest botanical 

 work that we have received from Europe, it is mark- 

 ed as unknown. 1 had no doubt, before I was per- 

 sonally acquainted with Korrtig, that he had ascer- 

 tained it ; but he assured me that he knew not what 

 the Greek writers meant by the nard of India ; he 

 had found, indeed, and described a sixth species of 

 the nardus, which is called Indian in the Supplement 



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