S HI INTRODUCTION. 



lion to Botanical studies. But they are stiil the only persons who are likely to 



contribute to an institution of this nature ; and when it is considered, that to collect 

 plants, and send them to the distance of several hundred miles, is very expensive, we 

 shall cease to wonder that the number contributed from this quarter has not been 

 greater. Indeed a total of three thousand two hundred species contributed to 



the Botanical Garden in the space of twenty years, three thousand of which at least 

 have been given by the Europeans resident in India, not only vindicates them from the 

 charge of indifference to this object, but evinces a degree of attention to it scarcely 

 paralleled in an equal population in any other country. 



A long series of years must, however, elapse before the catalogue of a Botanical 

 Garden which depends on such resources alone, can be very extensive, however li- 

 beral the supplies may be. Still it will have the merit of presenting to the public 

 a list of plants the far greater part of which were unknown to European Botanists, 

 and therefore, though not so rich in the number of genera and species as those in a 

 situation where plants can be easily purchased, it will far more extensively serve the 

 cause of science, and thus more effectually answer the end of such an institution, than 

 a large number of gardens, which, however rich, could furnish the Botanist with 

 little of what is new. 



Those who think superficially upon this subject, may suppose, that the stock of 

 Asiatic productions is now nearly exhausted. This is so far from being the fact, 

 that it may be considered as but just opened. The eastern frontier of Bengal has, 

 in the short space of four years, produced one hundred and ninety species, all col- 

 lected by one man, Mr. M. R. Smith, of Silhet, and he far from being in such opulent 

 circumstances as will permit him to expend much in these pursuits. The success with 

 which he has led the w,ay, is sufficient to warrant very enlarged expectations when 

 the whole of that extensive region shall be carefully examined. When to this 



we add, the whole of our northern frontier, reaching from the Garrow mountains to 

 Cashmere, and reflect, that a very great part of it borders on the most elevated range 

 of mountains in the world, we may surely indulge sanguine expectations of large ad- 

 ditions to our botanical treasures without danger of disappointment. 



