1841.] On the Geology, 8fc. Sfc. 473 



In addition to the cultivated plants mentioned in my first letter a small 

 quantity of sugar-cane has been lately added to the list, and with some 

 success ; it is unnecessary to say that the expression and boiling of the 

 juice are conducted in the same manner that these operations are perform- 

 ed throughout India from the Himalaya to the Cape Comorin, and that the 

 compound of sugar, molasses, earthy matter and other impurities,' called 

 goor is the result. A Sugar Mill, wood, carpenter's work and all costs 

 from five to six rupers. The fixed state of the industry of Asiatics 

 cannot find a more fit illustration than in the management of their Sugar 

 Cane. For at legist two thousand years, for of that period we have record, 

 that the same rough process has been gone through, the same amount of 

 labour wasted rather than expended, and the step beyond their rude and 

 economical preparation of sugar-candy (in which they have been com- 

 pletely distanced by the Chinese), has never been thought of. A fol- 

 lower of the School of Madame de Stael, who apportioned invention and 

 suggestion to certain parallels of latitude, and improvement, and perfection 

 without discovery to others, would point to the history of the manufacture 

 of this necessary springing up in the South, but perfected by Northern 

 skill as proof of their theory : but another estimate would refer this back- 

 wardness to improvement on the part of the Asiatic to that ever enduring 

 insecurity of property which has taken from capital nearly all its power 

 to stimulate or reward industry, from combination all its force, and from 

 skill every disposition to suggest, far less improve. 



It would be wandering far from the subject to enquire how this inse- 

 curity arose, and how it has been perpetuated, but deficiency of moral, 

 much rather than intellectual energy has been at its root and accom- 

 panied its growth. 



A very common plant grows on the black soil, chiefly in the jowarrie 

 fields, the Croton plicatum mistaken by Burman, for the Croton tinctorium 

 of the South of Europe, which plant it greatly resembles in proper- 

 ties and appearance. The Croton tinctorium, is cultivated in the South 

 of France for its dye, the litmus or turnsole as it used to be called. Drs. 

 Ainslie and Roxburgh have both suggested the employment of the Croton 

 plicatum for this purpose ; acting en their opinion, I have extracted, by 

 a simple infusion from the capsules of the plant, a dye having the peculiar 

 properties of litmus, but have failed in purifying it from the extraneous 

 substances contained in the aqueous solution. This is commonly done in 

 Europe by fermentation and by admixture of some alkali, or alkaline 

 earth, by which the blue violet, its peculiar colour, is maintained, but 

 these means will not answer in a tropical country, where the great heat 



