714 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[March 2, 1872. 
jcacter, that to attempt to ascertain its source is almost as 
hopeless a task as endeavouring to find out a person’s 
name by a lock of his hair. In sending economic pro¬ 
ducts, dried specimens of a branch of the plants pro¬ 
ducing them, with the leaves, flowers and fruit attached, 
also specimens of the bark and wood, also specimens of 
the leaves, flowers and fruit, preserved in spirit, should 
he forwarded. And these specimens, together with the 
product, should all be obtained from the same identical 
plant. This is especially necessary when the product is 
.a gum or other substance having no organic structure. 
•Great care should be taken to append the correct verna¬ 
cular names, as vernacular names properly applied are of 
material assistance in the recognition of the substance. 
Vernacular names, however, though they are undoubtedly 
the economic botanist’s best friend, yet, if great care is 
not taken, prove a constant source of error. A name 
belonging to one substance is often applied to others, 
from a real or fancied resemblance, or from ignorance. 
This is especially the case in colonies. A person leaves 
his native country to make his home in another, and 
carries with him the old scenes and associations vividly 
impressed on his memory, and to perpetuate them he 
names the plants around him after those of his native 
beaths and hedgerows, making a plant do duty for his 
native violet, however far removed it may be in other 
xespects. But let not my remarks be taken in deprecia¬ 
tion of vernacular names; I value them highly, as my 
words elsewhere will show;* but what I wish to insist 
on here is that great care should be taken in bestowing 
them accurately, and that it is not sufficient to find the 
vernacular name of a product in connection with a 
botanical name of the plant in any work, to establish 
the identity; that, in short, they are but a means to an 
end, not the end of inquiry itself. 
The geographical source of a product should always 
be accurately indicated. Even at the present time the 
localities where'some of our utilized substances are ob¬ 
tained are only guessed at, and this arises from various 
causes. Many of the ports of shipment—Singapore may 
be taken as a good illustration—are only entrepots for 
neighbouring districts or countries, and a product may, 
before it arrives there, have been brought a long distance 
from the interior, or by native craft from another 
country. Or, again, a ship may call at several ports, and 
.only be “ entered” here as from the last port she quitted; 
or she may break bulk from some cause, or the article 
may only be a reshipment. I remember an amusing 
instance of reshipment of this kind. Seeing in the 
‘ Customs Bill of Entry ’ a parcel of india-rubber entered 
ns coming from Australia, and having heard from various 
sources encouraging accounts of Australian rubber, I 
naturally was very anxious to see'this, the first importa¬ 
tion. After a long series of inquiries at the Custom¬ 
house, brokers and docks, judge of my disappointment 
when I found it consisted of “ returned stores,” old 
india-rubber tubing, which ultimately found its way to 
a marine-store dealer’s. These are a few points which 
xequire attention, in order to give merchants every 
facility of judging of the value of new products, and at 
the same time of increasing our knowledge. 
But one of the greatest aids to our merchants and 
manufacturers would be a good trade or commercial 
museum. Here the pharmacist could see grouped to¬ 
gether all the medicinal substances, and could select and 
could judge whether any yielded an analogous extrac¬ 
tive principle and the same action as one of which the 
supply was deficient; the cabinet-maker could judge of 
the colour and direction of the grain of a wood; the per¬ 
fumer of the odour of a substance; the shipbuilder the 
tenacity of a wood and its power of resisting atmo¬ 
spheric influence; and the dyer of the dye he is in search 
of; and the fibre merchant and the paper manufacturer 
# Seemann’s * Journal of Botany,’ vol. vii. p. 361. 
of the substances most likely to yield them the best re¬ 
sults. Thus each one would have presented to his eye 
the substances in which he felt the most interest, and 
all grouped together. 
Professor Edward Solly, in his lecture delivered be¬ 
fore the Society of Arts, on the “ Scientific Results of 
the Exhibition of 1851,” has the following very perti¬ 
nent remarks on this question:— 
“ If you were to place before any mamifacturer speci¬ 
mens of all the substances which could be employed in 
his particular manufacture, and if you could tell him 
from whence each could be procured, its cost, the quan¬ 
tities in which he could obtain it, and its physical and 
chemical properties, he would soon be able to select for 
himself the one best suited for his purpose. This, how¬ 
ever, has never happened in relation to any one art; in 
each case the manufacturer has had to make the best of 
the materials which chance or accident has brought be¬ 
fore him. It is strange and startling, but, nevertheless, 
perfectly true, that even at the present time there are 
many excellent and abundant productions of* nature 
with which not only our manufacturers, but, in some 
instances, even our men of science, are wholly unac¬ 
quainted.” 
The truth of these remarks will be felt strongly by any 
one who takes the trouble to examine any of the great 
divisions of raw material. He will obtain tolerably com¬ 
plete information respecting most of those substances 
which are known to trade and commerce, but of the 
greater number of those not known to the broker he will 
learn little or nothing. Men of business do not feel the 
want of such knowledge, because, in the first place, they 
are ignorant of its existence, and, secondly, because they 
do not see how it could aid them in their business; and 
if it should happen that an enterprising manufacturer 
desires to learn something of the cultivation and pro¬ 
duction of the raw material with which he works (or 
desires to work) he generally finds it quite impossible 
to obtain any really sound and useful information. 
An inseparable part of such a museum would be a 
chemical laboratory. To such a museum specimens of 
every new substance should be sent, in order that they 
might be examined botanically and chemically, and their 
value proximately determined. For such an examina¬ 
tion those who are directly interested in the substance 
would not object to pay a fee. These researches would 
not come between the importer and his profits. Such a 
museum, when its objects became known, would meet 
with speedy recognition and support. 
Another question, which has a very important bearing 
on economic botany under its commercial aspect, is the 
cultivation of those economic plants not already culti¬ 
vated, and their acclimatization in localities where the 
various conditions which are so many elements of suc¬ 
cess are more controllable than in the native habitats. 
We are so fortunately situated that our territorial pos¬ 
sessions have a geographical .range amply sufficient to 
satisfy the climatic desiderata of every plant. It may 
be received as an axiom beyond all controversion, that 
spontaneous forest products cannot be depended on for 
regular supply, and that, sooner or later, recourse must 
be had to cultivation. 
What a complex question is civilization, and its modern 
representative colonization, even if viewed in their con¬ 
nection with forest products? If we view a primeval 
forest, where the influence of man has never been felt, 
where it has the appearance so well portrayed by 
Tennyson:— 
“ The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns 
And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven, 
The slender cocoa’s drooping crown of plumes, 
* # * * 
The lustre of the long convolvuluses 
That coiled around the stately stems, and ran 
Ev’n to the limit 3f the land,” 
