66 
THE INDIAN MUSEUM: 1814-1914. 
dealing witli the major products should be compiled in the 
first place. This was taken in hand and the ledger and 
correspondence files of the office were utilized by Sir George 
Watt in writing the Commercial Products of India”, which 
was completed at Kew in 1907. 
Mr. I. H.Burkill succeeded Sir George Watt in the Museum 
in 1901, and continued to add largely to the Economic Court. 
He carried out a number of tours in different parts of India and 
made special studies of cotton, jute, fibre-plants, pulses and 
spices. He also prosecuted an exhaustive study of yams, an 
important famine-food yielded by the genus Dioscorea. Besides 
contributing numerous interesting botanical papers to the 
Asiatic Society of Bengal, he wrote on the plants of Baluchis¬ 
tan and Nepal. He was Botanist in the Abor Expedition of 
1911-12. On the formation of the Indian Indigenous Drugs 
Committee in 1895, the Reporter on Economic Products 
was appointed Secretary. The drugs for experiment were 
distributed by the Medical Store Department and all the 
results of the clinical investigations were received in the office 
of the Reporter, where the meetings of the committee were 
held. 
The need for a chemical laboratory for testing economic 
products in connection with this office was long felt. When 
Mr. D. Hooper, late Government Quinologist to the Madras 
Government, joined the staff in 1897, suitable rooms were fitted 
upon the ground floor, gas was installed and technical analyses 
were undertaken. Tanning materials were first taken up 
and the amount of tannin in a large number of the more 
important barks, fruits and their extracts was estimated. 
Gums suitable for confectionery were tasted for their physi¬ 
cal and chemical properties, and the gums of authentic 
species of Acacia were examined comparatively. Indigenous 
resins of the dammar class were tested as to their solubility 
and chemical values as compared with imported resins. The 
nature of gutta-percha and India rubber obtained from local 
sources was examined. The composition of oils and fats of 
India was reported upon in Agricultural Ledger No. 5 of 
1912, and a comprehensive account of Indian beeswax 
formed the subject of the Agricultural Ledger No. 7 of 1904. 
