IX 



eastern parts of Bengal, where the periodical rains are heavy 

 and incessant for seven or eight months of the year. 



From the fibres of Phcenix farinifera, a kind of flour or 

 meal is obtained, which on boiling becomes a kind of conjee, 

 or sago, that might be rendered of the utmost importance 

 in times of scarcity, while the leaflets are made into mats 

 for sleeping upon, and the fibres of the petioles are made 

 into baskets. 



Arenga saccharifera, a stately palm, the fibres of which 

 afford material for cables and cordage, celebrated both for 

 strength and resisting wet, while its juice is either drank as 

 toddy or made into sugar. Its pith is used as sago, and the 

 young albumen affords a well-known preserve. 



Caryota urens, another handsome species, has been known 

 to yield above 100 pints of palm wine, or toddy, per diem. 

 The pith or farinaceous parts of the old trees are equal to 

 the best sago, and are either made into bread, or boiled into 

 gruel. During a famine, adverted to by Dr. Roxburgh, the 

 people suffered nothing as long as these trees lasted. 



Yet the distinguishing characters of the species composing 

 this important and characteristic family of Indian plants, are 

 only for the first time collected together, and made known in 

 a connected shape. The number of new genera and species 

 collected chiefly in the course of Mr. Griffith's unimposing, 

 but really useful and important services in Assam, the Mish- 

 mee, Boutan, Khassya, and Himalaya Mountains, AfFghanis- 

 than, Burma, Tenasserim provinces, and the Straits, affords a 

 gratifying instance of the successful exertion of one indivi- 

 dual in the cause of science. 



It is not generally known that several of these palms 

 contribute largely to the produce of sugar in Bengal ; Dr. 

 Roxburgh mentions in his time, the probable produce to 

 be 100,000 mds. from these trees in Bengal alone ; but the 

 question has never we believe been examined either as to 

 what the produce actually is, or how it might be improved. 

 But while so much yet remains to be investigated relative 



