474 On the Geology, Sfc. Sfc. [No. 114. 



causes the infusion to pass almost at once to the putrefactive fermenta- 

 tion, whereby the colour is vitiated or altogether discharged, a thing not 

 likely to occur in the more temperate climate of Europe. I see that the 

 same vitiation of colour of the Himalaya Archil, a litmus lichen, is 

 complained of in the transactions of the last meeting of the Agri- 

 Horticultural Society of Bengal, and I would recommend that a sufficient 

 quantity of capsules of this plant (which I can readily supply) be sent 

 to England there to be tested by superior Art, and under the more advan- 

 tageous circumstance of a cooler temperature. The natives regard the 

 plant as completely useless, and are even ignorant that the juice of the 

 capsules gives a blue stain to cloth ; I shall now give some account of the 

 more useful trees and shrubs, all of which are found growing in the 

 neighbouring jungles. 



Caryota Urens. This stately palm is indigenous to these jungles, but 

 from all I could hear is not to be met with in great abundance. 



The soil would appear to suit it well, as one specimen I saw grew at 

 least to the height of 60 feet. This is the sago palm of the interior as 

 the other species which yield that article are either insular, or coast 

 productions, which would in all probability perish if transplanted from 

 the soil and climate they most affect. To those who have witnessed 

 or even heard of the dreadful and unavoidable calamity of famine to 

 which every well peopled tropical region is subject, any suggestion 

 by which the horrors of that scourge may be averted or even mitiga- 

 ted must prove acceptable ; a feasible means of doing this would ap- 

 pear to exist in propagating and carefully preserving these sago trees, 

 and I cannot conceive a fitter purpose for the almost useless waters of 

 this splendid tank, than their contributing to the inestimable end ; for a 

 preserve of these palms in its neighbourhood would not only be secured 

 in a never failing supply of water, but the tree jungle with which it is 

 surrounded would afford shade to the young plants, which, from the si- 

 tuation that they are found wild in, would seem requisite. Far be from 

 me the wish to see a race of men palmivorous, for lotophagi and anthropo- 

 phagi notwithstanding all that the poets have sung of the golden age, may 

 on most occasions be made convertible terms without any violation of 

 the truth, but the very nature of things precludes the supposition of the 

 natives of India ever becoming so, as much as it does our painting our- 

 selves with wood or worshipping the mistletoe. As to the fitness of the 

 food for the support of life during famine, I subjoin the statement of Dr. 

 Roxburgh, who must have been an eye witness of the facts related. ' The 

 pith or farinaceous part of the trunk of old trees, is said to be equal to the 



