Page:Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Vol 1.djvu/510

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458
List of Articles of Materia Medica.
[Oct.


The ammon. precipitate of phosphate was digested in sulphuric acid, and converted into sulphate : the filtered solution was then proved to contain phosphoric acid by its behaviour with muriate of magnesia and ammonia. The analysis was not carried farther than to the demonstra- tion of the presence of he phosphates generally, and their amount in round numbers. The Ava fossil bones were found to be mineralized also, and to have lost their animal matter, but they differ again from either the Hima- layan or the Jabalpur fossils in regard to the mineralizing substance, and are of two distinct kinds. 4. The first, a dark brown heavy substance, is impregnated with iron clay, yielding on analysis, Carbonate of lime, 25.1 Phosphate of lime dissolved in nitric acid, *... 34. > 100. Silex and oxide of iron, &c. — not dissolved. . . 41,3 5. The second or earthy bone from Ava proved to be wholly con- verted into carbonate of lime, colored merely with a little clay-iron of a dirty greyish brown.

VI. — List of Articles of Materia Medica, obtained in the Bazars of the Western and Northern Provinces of India. By J. F. Royle, Esq. late Superintendent of the Botanic Garden, Sehdrunpur.

The following table was by no means drawn up with a view to publication ; thinking it however eminently fitted to assist naturalists in India in pursuing their investigations of the natural products of the country, we obtained the author's permission to make use of it as it is. In the 11th volume of the Asiatic Researches will be found a catalogue of a similar nature, drawn up by Dr. Fleming and Professor Carey, of such articles of Materia Medica, drugs, minerals, and plants as were procurable in the bazars of Bengal, with notes of the uses and qua- lities of many of them. The present table contains very numer- ous articles foreign to that list, and to these provinces altogether ; and besides the advantage of the progress of botanical knowledge since that time, the plants of many of the drugs not cognizable by their external appearance have been procured and cultivated by Dr. Royle in the Saharunpur Garden, to ascertain their real nature, and to compare them with the description given in the works of Aristotle, Dioscorides, Pliny, Avicenna, and the ancient Arabic authors. These remarks relate more particularly to the voluminous catalogue of plants, &c. taken home by Dr. Royle, which we hope ere this has been put into the publisher's hands ; but the present epitome of such substances