INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 127 



North of Nagar, and near the sources of the Warda River 

 (in 14° N. lat.)j there is a marked break in the chain^ which 

 there seems hardly to rise above the level plain of Dharwar 

 to the eastward. Here the watershed recedes farther than 

 usual from the west coast, and two considerable rivers flow in 

 deep ravines from, the immediate vicinity of Dharwar to the 

 Western Ocean, separated by lateral spurs which run south- 

 west from the axis of the chain. 



Dr. Buchanan Hamilton was the first after Rheede to ex- 

 plore the botany of Malabar. Having been deputed to that 

 province by the Government of Madras, charged with a mul- 

 tiplicity of duties, he does not seem to have collected largely, 

 nor has he published any general work on the subject. Many 

 important botanical observations of his are, however, detailed 

 in various publications, and especially in his Commentaries on 

 the ' Hortus Malabaricus,' which have in part only appeared in 

 the Linnsean Transactions. To this task he brought an ex- 

 tensive knowledge of tropical botany and Oriental literature. 



Dr. Wight's researches, in many parts of the province, are 

 justly celebrated throughout Europe ; he has personally ex- 

 plored the Travancor mountains as far south as Cape Co- 

 moriuj the Courtalam and Pulney hUls, the neighbourhood of 

 Quilon, and especially the Nilghiri chain, which is easily acces- 

 sible from Coimbator, where he so long resided as superru- 

 tendent of the Government Cotton Plantations. Dr. Gard- 

 ner, when on a visit to Dr. Wight, also collected in the Nil- 

 ghiri chaia, as did Sir Frederic Adam, and Mr. Schmid, a 

 missionary, a few of whose plants have been published by 

 Zenker. 



The northern district, or Canara, has been diligently ex- 

 plored by Mr. Dalzell, who resided for many years at Vin- 

 gorla, in the Southern Concan, and made extensive journeys. 

 A large collection of Canara and Kiirg plants was also made 

 by Mr. Metz*, a missionary, and distributed in Germany by 

 Hohenacker, and named by Miquel ; these are partly from the 



* The name of Mr. Metz should be substituted for that of Mr. Schmid at 

 p. 69 of tliis Essay. 



