1832.] denominated in Hindustan, Nipalese. 11 



and exported southwards, to Nepal and Hindustan, and northwards, to 

 Sakya-Gdmba, Digarchi, and other places in Tramontane Bhote. The 

 manufactories are mere sheds, established in the midst of the immense 

 forest of Cis-Himalayan Bhote, which afford to the paper-makers an in- 

 exhaustible supply, on the very spot, of the firewood and ashes, which 

 they consume so largely : abundance of clear water (another requisite) 

 is likewise procurable every where in the same region. I cannot learn 

 by whom or when the valuable properties of the paper plant were dis- 

 covered ; but the Nipalese say, that any of their books now existent, 

 which is made of Palmira leaves, may be safely pronounced, on that 

 account, to be 500 years old : whence we may perhaps infer that the 

 paper manufacture was founded about that time. I conjecture, that the 

 art of paper-making was got by the Cis-Himalayan Bhoteahs, via 

 Lhassa, from China — a paper of the very same sort being manufactur- 

 ed at Lhassa ; and most of the useful arts of these regions having flowed 

 upon them, through Tibet, from China ; and not from Hindustan. 



Nepal Residency, Nov. 1831. 



P. S. — Dr. Wallich having fully described the paper plant, it would 

 be superfluous to say a word about it. The raw produce or pulp (beat 

 up into bricks) has been sent to England, and declared by the ablest 

 persons to be of unrivalled excellence, as a material for the manufac- 

 ture of that sort of paper upon which proof-engravings are taken off. 

 The manufactured produce of Nepal is for office records incomparably 

 better than any Indian paper, being as strong and durable as leather al- 

 most, and quite smooth enough to write on. It has been adopted in one 

 or two offices in the plains, and ought to be generally substituted for 

 the flimsy friable material to which we commit all our records. 



III. — Account of anew Genus of hand Snails, allied to the Genus 

 Cyclostoma, of Lamarck ; with a description of a Species found on 

 the outlying Rocks of the Rdjmahal range of Hills. By W. H. 

 Benson, Esq. Bengal Civil Service. 



[Plate I. fig. II. a. b. c] 

 Genus pterocyclos. Testa discoidea, supra convexiuscula, subtus 

 concava, late umbilicata ; anfractibus cylindraceis, vix cohaerentibus, 

 omnibus utrinque apparentibus ; suturis excavatis ; peristomate reflexo, 

 superne sinu obliquo interrupto ; labro supra ala fornicata. sinum ob- 

 tegente instructo ; ala lata, tumida, antice declivi, mucronata, anfrac- 

 tui penultimo adhserente. 



Animal adhuc incognitum, forsan Cyclostomati simile. 



c 2 



