REVIEWS. 
59 
visited, and that in the first king’s ship which has touched there since 
Cook’s voyage, and while pursuing the track of the illustrious navi¬ 
gator in south-polar discovery; and that, at a later period, he was nearly 
the first European who has approached Chumulari since Turner’s embassy. 
We are not surprised at the influence that these works exerted on the 
mind of Dr. Hooker; as, to the mind of every original thinker, they appeal 
with a force and energy which the ordinary run of modern travels are in¬ 
capable of. 
Having thus very briefly sketched our author’s prospects, we will pro¬ 
ceed a short way in his company, allowing him to state his observations as 
much as possible in his own words. 
On the 11th of November, 1847, the Moozuffer , with our author on 
board, left England, and after a voyage of two months, was steaming 
among the low, swampy islands of the Sunderbunds. Here the large fruits 
of the Nip a fruticans appear to have excited most interest, as they were 
thrown up by the paddles of the steamer. They are the product of a low, 
stemless palm, which grows in the tidal waters of the Indian ocean, and 
bears a large head of nuts ; which are interesting to the geologist from the 
nuts of a similar plant abounding in the tertiary formations at the mouth 
of the Thames, and having floated about there in as great profusion till 
buried in the silt and mud which now forms the Isle of Sheppy. 
During Dr. J. D. Hooker’s stay at Calcutta, his leisure hours were spent 
partly at Government House and partly at Sir Laurence Peel’s residence. 
The ,attractions he there met with do not appear to have prevented his 
attention being steadily employed on the great objects of his mission ; for 
towards the close of the month of January we meet him at Mr. Williams’s 
camp, at Taldangah, a dawk station, near the western limits of the coal 
basin, the Damooda valley; here— 
u The coal crops out at surface ; but the shafts are sunk through thick beds of 
alluvium. The age of these coal-fields is quite unknown, and I regret to say that 
my examination of their fossil plants throws no material light upon the subject; 
upwards of thirty species of fossil plants have been procured, and of these the 
majority are referred by Dr. McClelland to the inferior oolite period of England, 
from the prevalence of Lamia , Glossopteris , and Tceniopteris. Some of these 
genera, together with the Vertebraria (a very remarkable Indian fossil), are also 
recognised in the coal-fields of Sind and of Australia. I cannot, however, think 
that botanical evidence of such a nature is sufficient to warrant a satisfactory refer¬ 
ence of these Indian coal-fields to the same epoch as those of England or of 
Australia ; in the first place, the outlines of the fronds of ferns, and their nervation, 
are frail characters, if employed for the determination of existing genera, and much 
more so of fossil fragments ; in the second, recent ferns are so widely distributed that 
an inspection of the majority affords but little clue to the region or locality they 
come from ; and, in the third place, considering the wide difference in latitude and 
longitude of Yorkshire, India, and Australia, the natural conclusion is, that they 
could not have supported a similar vegetation at the same epoch. In fact, finding 
