TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION K, 917 
‘was a singular absence of any practical help in the shape of proposals, or even 
hints, as to how quinine was to be extracted from the rapidly increasing stock of 
crown and yellow bark. The officers in charge of the cinchona plantations in India 
had therefore to do their best to solve the problem for themselves. And it was ulti- 
mately solved by Mr. C. H. Wood, at one time Government Quinologistin Sikkim, 
who suggested, and Mr. J. A. Gammie, Deputy-Superintendent of the plantation 
there, who carried into practice a method of extraction by the use, as solvents of 
the cinchona alkaloids, of a mixture of fusel-oil and petroleum. The details of 
this process were published in the ‘ Calcutta Official Gazette,’ for the benefit of all 
whom it might concern. Very soon after the introduction of this method of 
manufacture, the Government factories in Sikkim and the Nilgiris were able to 
supply the whole of the Government hospitals and dispensaries in India with all 
the quinine required in them (some 5,000 or 6,000 pounds annually), besides 
providing an almost equal quantity for the supply of Government officers for 
charitable purposes. The latest development of the quinine enterprise in India 
has been the organisation of a scheme for the sale at all the post-offices in the 
province of Bengal, and in some of those of Madras, of packets each containing 
tive grains of pure quinine, that being a sufficient dose for an ordinary case of fever 
ina native of India. These packets (of which some are on the table for distri- 
bution) are sold at one pice each, the pice being a coin which is equal, at the 
current rate of exchange, to one farthing sterling! 
In conclusion, I wish to make a few remarks on the third great economic 
enterprise connected with Botany in India, viz. the Forest Department. The 
necessity for taking some steps to preserve a continuity of supply of timber, 
damboos, and other products trom the jungles which had for generations been 
exploited in the most reckless fashion, was first recognised by the Government of 
Bombay, who in 1807 appointed commissioners to fix the boundaries of and to 
guard the forests in that Presidency. This scheme was abandoned in 1822, but 
was resumed in a modified form during 1839-40. Seven years later a regular 
forest service was established in Bombay, and Dr. Gibson was its first head. Dr. 
Gibson in turn was succeeded by Mr. Dalze)l—and both were Botanists. In the 
Madras Presidency the first man to recognise the necessity of perpetuating the 
supply of teak for ship-building was Mr. Connolly, collector of Malabar, who in 
1843 established a teak plantation at Nelumbur, which has been carried on, and 
annually added to, down to the present time. In 1847 Dr. Cleghorn (a Botanist) 
was appointed to report on the conservation of the forests of Mysore (which con- 
tain the well-known sandal-wood), and the following year Lieutenant Michael 
(still with us as General Michael, a hale and hearty veteran) was appointed to 
organise and conserve the public forests in Coimbatore and Cochin. The crowning 
merit of General Michael’s administration was the establishment, for the first time 
in India, of a system of protection against the fires which annually used to work 
such deadly havoc. In 1850 the British Asscciation, at their Edinburgh Meeting, 
appointed a Committee to consider and report upon the probable effects, from an 
economic and physical point of view, of the destruction of tropical forests. This 
Committee’s Report was submitted to the Association at the Meeting at Ipswich in 
1851. The weighty evidence collected in this Report so impressed the Court of 
Directors of the East India Company that, within a few years, regular forest esta- 
blishments were sanctioned for Madras and British Burma, the two main sources 
of the supply of teak. 
In 1856 Mr. (now Sir Dietrich) Brandis was appointed to the care of the 
forests of the latter province. These forests had been the object of spasmodic 
efforts in conservancy for many years previously. In 1827 Dr. Wallich reported 
on the teak forests, and five years later a small conservancy establishment was 
organised, oflicered by natives. This, however, was kept up for only three or four 
years. In 1837 and 1838 Dr. Helfer reported on these forests, and an English 
-conservator was appointed, In 1842 and 1847 Codes of Forest Laws were drawn 
up, but do not appear to have been enforced to any extent. In 1853 Dr. McClelland 
‘was appointed superintendent, but he continued to hold the office for only a short 
time. A few years after Sir Dietrich Brandis’s assumption of the charge of the 
