The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal. 267 



extent of the wild tea plants, we may quote the follow- 

 ing : " In giving a statement of the number of tea- 

 " tracts, when I say that Tingri, or any other tract, is so long 

 " and so broad, it must be understood, that space to that 

 " extent only has been cleared, being found to contain all 

 " the plants which grew thickly together ; as it was not 

 " thought worth while, at the commencement of these ex- 

 " periments to go to the expense of clearing any more of the 

 " forest for the sake of a few straggling plants. If these 

 " straggling plants were followed up, they would, in all pro- 

 " bability, be found becoming more numerous, until you found 

 " yourself in another tract as thick and as numerous as 

 " the one you left ; and if the straggling plants of this new 

 " tract were traced, they would by degrees disappear until 

 " not one was seen ; but if you only proceeded on through 

 " the jungle, it is ten to one that you would come upon a 

 " solitary tea plant, a little further on you would meet with 

 " another ; until you gradually found yourself in another new 

 " tract, as full of plants as the one you had left, growing ab- 

 " solutely so thick as to impede each other's growth. Thus 

 " I am convinced one might go on for miles from one tract 

 " to another." 



Most people in perusing this, would suppose that Assam 

 was covered with tea plants, and that so far from Mr. Bruce 

 exaggerating in saying you might go on for miles, the reader 

 would imagine that you might travel from one end of Assam 

 to the other through a succession of tea-tracts. For a 

 tract the reader must understand a patch, several patches 

 often occur too in the same vicinity, and it is between these 

 that straggling plants are found. Mr. Bruce, however, calls 

 each of these patches, tracts; and the common jungle, pat- 

 ches. Thus he says, " All my tea-tracts about Tingri and 

 " Kahung are formed in this manner, with only a patch of 

 "jungle between them, which is not greater than what could 

 " be conveniently filled up by thinning those that have 



" too many plants. At Kahung I have lately knocked three 



2n 



