Bibliography. 165 



Art. XX. — Bibliographical Notices. 



1. Report on the Tea Plant of Upper Assam; hyWm. Griffith, 

 Assistant Surgeon Madras Establishment, late member of the Assam 

 Deputation.* (From the Transactions of the Agricultural Society 

 of Calcutta,) pp. S5, 8vo. "With two plates and four maps or charts. — 

 The important discovery that the genuine tea-plant is indigenous to 

 Upper Assam, which was made in the year 1834, excited, as might be 

 expected, a high degree of interest ; and the East India Company, who 

 were already attempting the cultivation of the tea in their possessions, 

 by its introduction from China, appointed a deputation to examine the 

 country in which the plant had been discovered. The officers se- 

 lected for this duty were Dr. Wallich and Mr. Griffith as botanists, 

 and Mr. McClelland as geologist, who set out upon their mission in 

 the autumn of 1835. The pamphlet before us is said to be a second 

 or revised report : we cannot determine the date of its publication, 

 and we have not seen the volume of the Transactions of the Agricul- 

 tural Society of Calcutta, of which it is said to form a part, but it 

 probably appeared as early as the year 1838. Owing to the present 

 relations of China with England, the subject of which it treats never 

 possessed so great an importance as at the present time, unless in- 

 deed (as is not very improbable) the future experiments of the East 

 India Company in the cultivation of the tea-plant are to be prosecuted 

 on Chinese soil ! 



The report contains a good deal of merely local or personal mat- 

 ter, and is so extensive that we can give nothing like an analysis of 

 its contents. The first part is occupied with the Movements of the 

 Deputation, enumeration of the tea localities, and the appearance 

 of the Tea-plants. The plant, it appears, occurs in patches of very 

 limited extent, but the localities are said to be numerous. It is a 

 shrub of ordinaiy size, or rarely reaching the altitude of a small tree, 

 growing in low situations, in a very light and porous soil, which is al- 

 ways yellowish or reddish-yellow ; and the climate is remarkable for 

 its humidity. The second part consists of Revmrlis on the Vegeta- 

 tion associated with the Tea-plant in Assam and in China. The third 

 is a Comparison between the Flora of Upper Assam, and that of Chi- 

 na, in somewhat similar latitudes ; a subject of great difficulty, owing 

 to the slight knowledge we "possess of the vegetation of China, but 

 which is very ably investigated by Mr. Griffith, especially as to the 

 indications which the presence or predominance of particular tribes or 



* Received from the author. 



