Vlll 



Resin, Turpentine, and a hundred other articles which we 

 have good reason to know may be had cheaper and better in 

 India than any where else, and the effect will soon become 

 perceptible on the productive resources and improvement of 

 the country. 



The Palms of India, to which so large a proportion of the 

 present volume is devoted, although constituting one of the 

 chief features of the vegetation of this country, and contribut- 

 ing so largely as they do to the shelter and employment of 

 the native population, are as yet imperfectly known. 



How greatly this important family of plants may be made 

 to contribute to the exports of the country, and comfort and 

 wants of the people, when the properties and uses of the 

 various species of which it is composed become fairly and 

 fully known, we may infer from a few instances., 



Amongst those described by Mr. Griffith in the present 

 volume, the Phcenix sylvestris, Roxb., or Khi/jjoor, affords a 

 wholesome drink, ' palm wine,' when fresh. Fermented, this 

 becomes vinegar; fermented and distilled, arrack, an ardent 

 spirit, which on redistillation becomes pure alcohol. The 

 fresh juice boiled down affords l-12th of its quantity of trea- 

 cle, which again yields \ of pure white sugar. Each tree 

 yields during the cold season ten gallons of juice, from which 

 eight pounds of sugar, or an equivalent proportion of spirit 

 or vinegar is obtained. 



Besides this, the fibres of the leaves are wrought into 

 mats and baskets. 



Another species, Sagus Konigsii, Griff, affords sago, upon 

 which a large proportion of the inhabitants of some of the 

 Eastern Islands subsist; a third, Calamus Draco, Willd. 

 affords the peculiar Balsam, Dragon's Blood, an article of 

 considerable commercial importance ; others, the Licula peU 

 tata, Roxb. and L. Jenkinsii, Griff, afford covering for boats, 

 dhoolies, and material for chattahs and umbrella-hats, which 

 last are indispensable to the natives of Assam and other 



