iaaa el i Be le a 
| 
MR. DRUMMOND'S COLLECTIONS. 39 
geous leaves and rich blossoms, which con- 
tinue open until past mid-day. 
Decoctions of the leaves are used by the 
natives as fomentations in cases of scrophu- 
lous enlargements of the joints; the boiled 
leaves being applied as a poultice at the 
same time. Its admission into the Hindoo 
Pharmacopeia is, perhaps, partly owing to 
the milky juice with which it abounds, 
most milky plants being esteemed medici- 
nal by them. Wight. 
Fig. 1. Calyx laid open, and Pistil. 2. Stamens. 
3. Section of Fruit :—magnified. 
(To be continued.) 
NOTICE CONCERNING THE LATE 
MR. DRUMMOND’S JOURNEYS 
AND HIS COLLECTIONS, MADE 
CHIEFLY IN THE SOUTHERN 
AND WESTERN PARTS OF THE 
UNITED STATES. 
Little did I foresee that, in this early 
stage of the publication of the Catalogue 
of the valuable Collections made by 
Drummond in the less frequented parts of 
North America, the painful duty would 
devolve upon me of recording his death, 
which took place at Havanna, in Cuba, in 
the month of March of the present year.— 
Thus have perished, while engaged in the 
cause of science with a degree of zeal of 
which history presents few examples, and 
y at the same time, two men in 
prime of life, of about the same age, and 
while on the eve of concluding their re- 
searches in countries equally interesting 
for their natural productions :—I allude to 
Mr. Douglas and the subject of the present 
notice. 
It will be but common justice to the 
memory of Mr. Drummond, to offer in this 
place a brief and general statement, as 
given by himself, of his researches i 
Texas, where he has been eminently suc- 
cessful: the account of the plants them- 
selves, as observed on a former occasion, 
will form the subject of a future paper. 
At p. 16 of this volume, I mentioned the 
circumstance of Mr. Drummond's arrival in 
BE 
Texas; and the following extracts from his 
the ture of the disease and 
= dated ** Town of Velasco, mouth of 
e Rio Brazos, Texas,” as well as those 
inet follow, cannot fail to be found inte- 
resting by our readers :— 
* We had a favourable passage from 
New Orleans to this place, and on our ar- 
rival found the river so high that it occa- 
sioned a delay of a week before we could 
reach the town of Brazosia, which is only 
about twenty miles up the river. The 
country, in general, is low and swampy, 
and ever since we came here, it has been 
flooded by the river: it consists almost en- 
tirely of prairies, except that the water- 
courses are bordered by woods, consisting 
chiefly of Live Oak and Poplar, with an un- 
der-growth of Carolina Cherry. I remained _ 
a few days at Brazosia, and having an op- 
portunity of sending by a vessel to New 
Orleans, I despatched the specimens 
which I collected without delay. Never 
having seen any of the sea-coast in 
this neighbourhood, I determined on re- 
turning to the mouth of the Rio Brazos, 
r. and commencing my operations there. I 
accordingly came back to this place, which 
nearly proved fatal to me, for when I had 
been here about ten days, and completed 
a collection of the few plants then in flow- 
er, and made arrangements for going to 
Galveston Bay in the same vessel that 
brought me hither, I was suddenly seized 
with cholera. Though ignorant of the na- 
the proper reme- 
dies, I fortunately took what was proper for 
me, and in a few hours the violent cramps 
in my legs gave way to the opium with 
which I dosed myself In the course of 
the same day the Captain and his sister 
were taken ill and died, and seven other 
persons died in two or three days—a large 
number for this small place, where there 
are only four houses, one of which was 
unvisited by the disease. All the cases 
terminated fatally, except mine, and always 
in ten or twelve hours, save one person, 
who lingered a few days. The weather 
was particularly cold and disagreeable for 
more than a week before the cholera ap- 
peared ; indeed the air here is constantly 
saturated with moisture, so as to render the 
