but at the same time most earnestly, to recommend to His Royal Highness the President, and to the Council, that such a representation be made to the Government, in order that means may be ensured for the establishment, in the first instance, of magnetical observatories in those places which, from local or other causes, afford the greatest facilities for the early commencement of these observations.[1]—Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, April—July 1837, page 316—330.
G. B. Airy.
There are, in tropical countries, many plants which yield a yellow juice, so nearly resembling Gamboge in external characters, and it is said, even in medical properties, that they have each obtained in their respective countries, the name of Gamboge Plant. These belong to exceedingly dissimilar families, their products are never exported from the countries in which they grow, and they are therefore known not to yield any part of the Gamboge of commerce. It has been much doubted, however, whether this is the produce of one plant only, and those Botanists who believe that it is so, differ in opinion as to what that plant is.
Modern Naturalists think this substance is obtained from a plant belonging to the Natural Family of Guttiferœ, and they generally differ only in believing, either with Murray, that this plant is Stalagmitis cambogioides; or, with De Candolle, that it is Garcinia Cambogia (See Essai sur les Proprietés Médicales des Plantes, p. 105). Murray's opinions were founded upon certain MSS. by König, and the examination of a specimen collected by him, both of which were in the possession of Sir Joseph Banks, by whose liberality he was allowed to publish his observations, which appeared in 1789, in the ninth volume of the Commentationes Societatis Regiæ Scientiarum Göttingensis.
The Authors of the British and several of the Continental Pharma-
- ↑ We have not introduced the Baron de Humboldt's letter to the President of the Royal Society, because our space will not admit of it; moreover, the Report of M. M. Christie and Airy, together with their own admirable observations, gives a conveniently condensed abstract of it, which renders such a step unnecessary.—Editor Madras Journal.
- ↑ It will be observed by our 14th Number, p. 300, that Dr. Wight has been simultaneously occupied in the examination of this subject, and, in a paper published anteriorly to Dr. Graham's, has proposed a name for the plant yielding the Gamboge more unexceptionable, in our opinion, than Hebradendron.—Editor Madras Journal.
