1838.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 460 



Calcutta has been thrown overboard and another king Log now sits in his place 

 to be kicked after his predecessor whenever an ambitious aspirant after regal 

 honours can collect half a dozen musquets and five or six ounces of gunpowder. 

 The sanguinary contest has been waging for seven months, and the list of killed 

 and wounded from all I can learn might be included in a nutshell ; fighting is 

 not their vice, but filthiness in person, dress and house is. The former Tingso 

 Pile has been deposed and a successor arrived three days ago to take charge of 

 the building which they have chosen to call a fort or castle. I am collecting all 

 the information I can, but the Bhuteeahs are not very communicative, and money 

 here as elsewhere is the only key to their knowledge box." 



Astronomy. 



Dr. McClelland called the attention of the members to the following 

 curious astronomical phenomenon, made known to him by a letter from 

 Sir J. W. Hershell, dated Cape of Good Hope, 13th January, 1838. 



" We are treated here with one of the rarest and most remarkable of astrono- 

 mical phsenomena, viz. the 6udden and unexpected accession of brightness, by 

 which a well known star of the second magnitude, 77 in the constellation Argo 

 has within these two months grown to surpass all the stars of the first magnitude 

 except Sirius, Canopus, and o Centauri ; to the latter of which it is now nearly if 

 not fully equal. During four years that I have been continually observing this 

 star I never had the smallest ground for suspecting it to be variable : nor has it 

 ever before so far as I am aware been noticed otherwise than as a large star of 

 the second magnitude. I am watchiug the progress and phases of this singular 

 phonomenou as you may suppose with great interest, and only regret that my ap- 

 proaching departure for Europe will probably oblige me to trust to the reports 

 of others for its ultimate event." 



Dr. McClelland stated that he had written to Mr. Taylor the Madras 

 astronomer on the subject, as the star might better be observed from his 

 observatory than at Calcutta. 



Botany. 



The following inquiry regarding the gamboge tree was submitted for 

 solution to such members as might be best situated for its investigation, 

 by Dr. J. Ghant Malcolmson of the Madras Medical Service, now in 

 Europe, in a letter to the Secretary. 



N. Britain, December 7th, 1837. 



"I venture to renew a correspondence with which I have occasionally trou- 

 bled you, at the request of Professor Graham of Edinburgh. You are aware 

 of the investigations he and Dr. Christison have lately been engaged on, in 

 reference to the gamboge tree, about which so many erroneous opinions have 

 been received. I had collected some specimens from the gamboge tree near 

 Rangoon, and the leaves and branches were found by Royle and myself to 

 differ from any in the India House collections ; and Mr. Brown having compar- 

 ed them with the specimens of Louveiro's plant from Siam in the British Mu- 

 seum, found it to resemble it very much, but to be apparently of a different 

 species, the leaves being much softer and more pointed. The tree was in full 

 fruit in May and I did not see the flowers : unfortunately the fruit I had 

 preserved in spirits and sent home, never reached their destination. I consider- 

 ed the tree to be the Guaicuma gambogia of Pensoon, but it is not necessary to 

 detain you with any account of it, as any of your readers who may be able to 

 supply Dr. Graham with specimens will have no difficulty of obtaining the in- 

 formation on the spot. The trees I saw had been wounded, and much fine gam- 

 boge had run down the trunk. Leaves, fruit, flowers, and sufficiency of the 

 gamboge (with bark), for experiment, are desired. The following extract from Dr. 

 Graham's letter will explain this : « Louveiro's gamboge tree he believes to be 

 the same with that of Burman (the Ceylon plant), in which he is certainly wrong- 

 He calls it Gambogia gutta, and describes it thus : Tree large, with spreading 

 branches, leaves broad, lanceolate, quite entire, flat, thick, scattered, petiolate, 

 small. Flowers saffron-colored, terminal, on many flowered peduncles. Calyx 

 of four leaflets : leaflets sub-rotund, concave, spreading. Corolla of 4 petals, 



