this sin the population was decimated by sword and plague. Aaron, when taxed by his brother for his conduct in this matter, attempted to excuse himself by casting the whole blame upon the people, and pleading the necessity of circumstances (Exod. xxxii.).

During his long absence in the mountain, Moses had received instructions regarding the ecclesiastical establishment, the tabernacle [TABERNACLE], and the priesthood [PRIESTS], which he soon afterwards proceeded to execute. Under the new institution Aaron was to be high-priest, and his sons and descendants priests; and the whole tribe to which he belonged, that of Levi, was set apart as the sacerdotal or learned caste [LEVITES]. Accordingly, after the tabernacle had been completed, and every preparation made for the commencement of actual service, Aaron and his sons were consecrated by Moses, who anointed them with the holy oil and invested them with the sacred garments. The high-priest applied himself assiduously to the duties of his exalted office, and during the period of nearly forty years that it was filled by him, his name seldom comes under our notice. But his elevation was soon followed by a most afflictive event. His two eldest sons, Nadab and Abihu, were struck dead for daring, seemingly when in a state of partial inebriety, to conduct the service of God in an irregular manner, by offering incense with unlawful fire. On this occasion it was enjoined that the priests should manifest none of the ordinary signs of mourning for the loss of those who were so dear to them. To this heavy stroke Aaron Sowed in silence (Lev. x. 1-11).

Aaron would seem to have been liable to some fits of jealousy at the superior influence and authority of his brother; for he joined in, or at least sanctioned the invidious conduct of his sister Miriam [MIRIAM], who, after the wife of Moses had been brought to the camp by Jethro, became apprehensive for her own position, and cast reflections upon Moses, much calculated to damage his influence, on account of his marriage with a foreigner-always an odious thing among the Hebrews. For this, Miriam was struck with temporary leprosy, which brought the high-priest to a sense of his sinful conduct, and he sought and obtained forgiveness (Num. xii.).

Some twenty years after (B.c. 1471), when the camp was in the wilderness of Paran, a formidable conspiracy was organized against the sacerdotal authority exercised by Aaron and his sons, and the civil authority exercised by Moses. This conspiracy was headed by chiefs of influence and station-Korah, of the tribe of Levi, and Dathan and Abiram, of the tribe of Reuben [KoRAH]. But the divine appointment was attested and confirmed by the signal destruction of the conspirators: and the next day, when the people assembled tumultuously and murmured loudly at the destruction which had overtaken their leaders and friends, a fierce pestilence broke out among them, and they fell by thousands on the spot. When this was seen, Aaron, at the command of Moses, lled a censer with fire from the altar, and, rush ing forward to the point where life had ended and death had not begun, he stood there, and the plague was stayed where he stood. This was in fact another attestation of the Divine appointment; and, for its further confirmation, as regarded

Aaron and his family, the chiefs of the several tribes were required to deposit their staves, and with them was placed that of Aaron for the tribe of Levi. They were all laid up together over night in the tabernacle, and in the morning it was found that, while the other rods remained as they were, that of Aaron had budded, blossomed, and yielded the fruit of almonds. The rod was preserved in the tabernacle, as an authentic evidence of the divine appointment of the Aaronic family to the priesthood-which, indeed, does not appear to have been ever afterwards disputed (Num. xvii. 1).

Aaron was not allowed to enter the Promised Land, on account of the distrust which he, as well as his brother, manifested when the rock was stricken at Meribah (Num. xx. 8-13). His death indeed occurred very soon after that event. For when the host arrived at Mount Hor, in going down the Wady Arabah [ARABAH], in order to double the mountainous territory of Edom, the Divine mandate came that Aaron, accompanied by his brother Moses and by his son Eleazer, should ascend to the top of that mountain in the view of all the people; and that he should there transfer his pontifical robes to Eleazer, and then die. He was 123 years old when his career thus strikingly terminated; and his son and his brother buried him in a cavern of the mountain [HOR, MOUNT]. The Israelites mourned for him thirty days; and on the first day of the month Ab, the Jews still hold a fast in commemoration of his death.

AARONITES, the descendants of Aaron, who served as priests at the sanctuary (Num. iv. 5, seq.; 1 Chron. xii. 27; xxvii. 17).

AB (N, father) is found as the first member of several compound Hebrew proper names, the etymology and meaning of which may be explained by a few remarks on the laws of their construction. This is the more necessary, as Leusden, Hiller, and Simonis, the authors of the three most celebrated Onomastica Sacra, as well as the many who blindly follow them, indif ferently take the former or latter member of such compounds to be in the relation of genitive to the other, i. e. consider it equally legitimate to say, Abner means father of light, or light of the father. Nevertheless, it may be laid down as an incontestable canon-being founded not merely on an accessory law, but on one of the characteristic peculiarities of the Syro-Arabian languages (that is, on the state construct)—that, in all cases in which a compound name consists of two nouns, one of which is to be considered in the relation of genitive to the other, that one must invariably be the latter. Abner, therefore, can only mean father of light.

This error appears to have arisen (besides the want of sure principles of construction) from the inability to appreciate the metaphorical sense in which the Hebrews use the terms father, son, &c. The name Abigail, father of joy, appeared inexplicable as the name of a woman; and therefore those scholars thought it allowable to sacrifice the construction to the necessities of the sense. And yet it is not difficult to conceive the process by which the idea of a natural father became modified into that of author, cause, source (as when it is said, 'has the rain a father?' Jor

xxxviii. 2); nor that, when once the language had sanctioned the use of father as equivalent to source, the word might be sometimes treated as an abstract, in idea, and be applied without gross incongruity to a woman.

As the Ethiopic, and especially the Arabic languages very frequently use father in the sense of possessor (as father of white, a name for milk), some have been disposed to vindicate the same privilege to Hebrew also. Thus Gesenius seems to have entertained this view, when he rendered Abigail by pater exultationis, i. e. hilaris, in his Thesaurus. In the German edition of his Manual, however, he has explained it by whose father is joy. Into the question as to the principle involved in the latter of his modes of interpretation, there is no need to enter; the immediate object of this article being solely to define the relation of the two nouns in a compound proper name, when one of them is considered dependent as a genitive on the other.

Very much light yet remains to be thrown on compound Hebrew proper names, by a study of those of the same class in Arabic. The innumerable compound prænomina and cognomina which the Arabs bestow not only on men, but on beasts and inanimate objects, furnish parallels to almost every peculiarity observable in Hebrew; and although no example may be found in which a woman is called father of joy, yet the principle of the metaphorical use of terms of relationship, as the first element in a name, will receive ample illustration, and be brought within the reach of our occidental conceptions. See an instructive paper on the Pranomina of the Arabs, by Kosegarten, in Ewald's Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, i. 297-317.) J. N. AB (N; 'Aßßá, Joseph. Antiq. iv. 4; the Macedonian Awos) is the Chaldee name of that month which is the fifth of the ecclesiastical and eleventh of the civil year of the Jews. The name was first introduced after the Babylonian captivity, and does not occur in the Old Testament, in which this month is only mentioned by its numeral designation as the fifth. It commenced with the new moon of our August (the reasons for this statement will be given in the article MONTHS), and always had 30 days. This month is pre-eminent in the Jewish calendar as the period of the most signal national calami

ties. The 1st is memorable for the death of Aaron (Num. xxxiii. 38). The 9th is the date assigned by Moses Cotzensis (cited in Wagenseil's Sota, p. 736) to the following events: the declaration that no one then adult, except Joshua and Caleb, should enter into the Promised Land (Num. xiv. 30); the destruction of the first Temple by Nebuchadnezzar (to these first two the fast of the fifth month,' in Zech. vii. 5; viii. 19, is supposed to refer; yet the tract Pesachim, cited in Reland's Antiq. Sacr., iv. 10, asserts that the latter was the only fast observed during the Captivity); the destruction of the second Temple by Titus; the devastation of the city Bettar ('); and the slaughter of Ben Cozibah (Bar Cocab), and of several thousand Jews there; and the ploughing up of the foundations of the Temple by Turnus Riffus-the two last of which happened in the time of Hadrian.

With regard to the destruction of the first Temple, although there is no doubt that the Jews commemorate that event by a fast on the 9th of Ab, yet the seventh is the date given for it in 2 Kings xxv. 8 (where, however, the Syriac and Arabic versions read the ninth), and the tenth that assigned in Jer. lii. 12. Josephus, however, in mentioning that the Herodian Temple was burnt on the tenth of Lous, expressly asserts that it was on the same day of the month on which the first Temple was destroyed (Bell. Jud. vi. 4, 5). Buxtorf, in his Synag. Jud. ch. xxx., reconciles the discrepancy between the 9th as the day of commemoration and the 10th as the date of the event, by saying that the conflagration began on the former day. Compare also Wagenseil's Sota, p. 942.

In a calendar ascribed to the celebrated astronomer Rab Ada, who lived in the third century, which Bodenschatz has given in his Kirchliche Verfassung der Juden, ii. 106, the 15th is the day appointed for the festival of the Exopopla, in which the wood for the burnt-offering was stored up in the court of the Temple, to which Nehemiah alludes in x. 34, and xiii. 31. Some place this festival on another day, or even month; or assume, on the authority of the treatise Taanith, that nine particular families brought wood on nine separate days, four of which, however, occur in Ab (Otho, Lexicon Rabbin. p. 380). The election of particular families accords with the statement in Nehemiah. Nevertheless, Josephus, speaking of this festival, says, ἐν ᾗ πᾶσιν ἔθος ὕλην προσφέρειν (Bell. Jud. ii. 17); and the date of the day succeeding it, which he mentions in the next section, fixes its celebration, in his time, on the 14th of the month. It is, however, extremely difficult to distinguish the original from the later forms in any rite of a people so prone to multiply its ceremonial ob

servances as the Jews were.

18th is a fast in memory of the western lamp Lastly, the Megillat Taanith states that the going out in the Temple in the time of Ahaz. it may be conjectured that this refers to the ex 2 Chron. xxix. 7, as a part of Ahaz's attempts to tinction of the lamps' which is mentioned in into what is meant by the western or evening suppress the Temple service. For an inquiry lamp, see the article CANDLESTICK.-J. N.

ABADDON, or APOLLYON (2, destruc tion; 'Aßaddar in Rev. ix. 11, where it is rendered by the Greek 'Arroλλówv, destroyer). The former is the Hebrew name, and the latter the Greek, for the angel of death, described (Rev. ix. 11) as the king and chief of the Apocalyptic locusts under the fifth trumpet, and as the angel of the abyss or bottomless pit.' This personitication is peculiar to the present text. In the Bible, and in every Rabbinical instance that occurs to us, the word 1178 (abaddon) means destruction (Job xxxi. '12), or the place of destruction, i. e. the subterranean world, Hades, the region of the dead (Job xxvi. 6; xxviii. 22; Prov. xv. 11). It is in fact the second of the seven names which the Rabbins apply to that region; and they de duce it particularly from Ps. lxxxviii. 11, 'Shall thy loving kindness be declared in the grave, or thy faithfulness in (abaddon) destruction? [HADES.]

B'

the ; אֲמָנָה or אֲבָנָה) ABANA, or AMANA

6

former being the kethib or Hebrew text, and the latter the keri or marginal reading; Sept. 'Aẞavá,), the name of one of the rivers which are mentioned by Naaman (2 Kings v. 12), Abana and Pharpar,' as 'rivers of Damascus." Amana signifies perennial,' and is probably the true name, the permutation of band m being very common in the Oriental dialects. It is easy to Sindrivers of Damascus;' but there is a difficulty in appropriating the distinctive names which are here applied to them. The main stream by which Damascus is now irrigated is called Barrada. This river, the Chrysorrhoas, or 'golden stream,' of the ancient geographers, as soon as it issues from a cleft of the Anti-Lebanon mountains, is immediately divided into three smaller courses. The central or principal stream runs straight towards the city, and there supplies the different public cisterns, baths, and fountains; he other branches diverge to the right and left along the rising ground on either hand, and having furnished the means of extensive irrigation, fall again into the main channel, after diffusing their fertilizing influences, without which the whole would be an arid desert, like the vast surrounding plains. In those plains the soil is in some parts even finer than here, but barren from the want of water. The main stream and its subsidiaries unite in greatly weakened force beyond the town on the south-east; and the collected waters, after flowing for two or three hours through the eastern bills, are at length lost in a marsh or lake, which is known as the Bahr el Merdj, or Lake of the Meadow. Dr. Richardson (Travels, ii. 499) states that the water of the Barrada, like the water of the Jordan, is of a white sulphureous hue, and an unpleasant taste.' At the present day it eems scarcely possible to appropriate with certainty the Scriptural names to these streams. There is indeed a resemblance of name which would suggest the Barrada to be the Pharpar, and then the question would be, which of the other streams is the Abana. But some contend that the Barrada is the Abana, and are only at a loss for the Pharpar. Others find both in the two subsidiary streams, and neglect the Barrada. The most recent conjecture seeks the Abana in the small river Fidgi or Fijih, which Dr. Richardson describes as rising near a village of the same name in a pleasant valley fifteen or twenty miles to the north-west of Damascus. It issues from the limestone rock, in a deep, rapid stream, about thirty feet wide. It pure and cold as iced water; and, after coursing down a stony and rugged channel for above a hundred yards, falls into the Barrada, which comes from another valley, and at the point of junction is only half as wide as the Fijih. Dr. Mansford Script. Gaz. in ABANA), who adopts the notion that the Abana was one of the subsidiary streams, well remarks that Naaman may be excused his national prejudice in favour of his own rivers, which, by their constant and beautiful supply, render the vicinity of Damascus, although on the edge of a desert, one of the most beautiful spots in the world; while the streams of Judæa, with the exception of the Jordan, are nearly dry the greater part of the year, and, running in deep and rocky channels, convey but partial fertility to the lands through which they flow.'

ABARIM (D"?; Sept. 'Aßapíu), a mom tain (Day), or rather chain of moun tains (Day) which form or belong to the mountainous district east of the Dead Sea and the lower Jordan. It presents many distinc masses and elevations, commanding extensive views of the country west of the river (Irby and Mangles, p. 459). From one of the highest of these, called Mount Nebo, Moses surveyed the Promised Land before he died. From the manner in which the names Abarim, Nebo, and Pisgah are connected (Deut. xxxii. 49, 'Get thee up into this mountain Abarim, unto Mount Nebo;' and xxxiv. 1, 'Unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah'), it would seem that Nebo was a mountain of the Abarim chain, and that Pisgah was the highest and most commanding peak of that mountain. The loftiest mountain of the neighbourhood is Mount Attarous, about ten miles north of the Arnon; and travellers have been disposed to identify it with Mount Nebo. It is represented as barren, its summit being marked by a wild pistachio-tree overshadowing a heap of stones. The precise appropriation of the three names, however, remains to be determined, as this locality has not yet (1843) had the advantage of such searching exploration as Professor Robinson has applied to Western Palestine.

[Cucurbita citrullus.]

ABATTACHIM (D'ON; Sept. σinvos). This word occurs only in Numbers xi. 5, where the murmuring Israelites say, 'We remember the fish which we did eat freely in Egypt, the cucumbers and the abattachim,' &c. The last word has always been rendered 'MELONS.' The probable correctness of this translation may be inferred from melons having been known to the nations of antiquity; and it may be proved to be so, by comparing the original term with the name of the melon in a cognate language such as the Arabic.

The cucurbitaceae, or gourd tribe, are remarkable for their power of adapting themselves to the different situations where they can be grown. Thus Mr. Elphinstone describes some of them as yielding large and juicy fruit in the midst of the Indian desert, where water is 300 feet from the surface. Extreme of moisture, however, is far from injurious to them, as the great majority are successfully cultivated in the rainy season in India. Mr. Moorcroft describes an ex

sensive cultivation of melons and cucumbers on the beds of weeds which float on the lakes of Cashmere. They are similarly cultivated in Persia and in China. In India, some of the species may be seen in the most arid places, others in the densest jungles. Planted at the foot of a tree, they emulate the vine in ascending its branches; and near a hut, they soon cover its thatch with a coating of green. They form a principal portion of the culture of Indian gardens: the farmer even rears them in the neighbourhood of his wells' (Royle, Himalayan Botany, p. 218).

These plants, though known to the Greeks, are not natives of Europe, but of Eastern countries, whence they must have been introduced into Greece. They probably may be traced to Syria or Egypt, whence other cultivated plants, as well as civilization, have travelled westwards. In Egypt they formed a portion of the food of the people at the very early period when the Israelites were led by Moses from its rich cultivation into the midst of the desert. The melon, the water-melon, and several others of the Cucurbitace, are mentioned by Wilkinson (Thebes, p. 212; Ancient Egyptians, iv. 62), as still cultivated there, and are described as being sown in the middle of December, and cut, the melons in ninety and the cucumbers in sixty days.

If we consider that the occurrences so graphically detailed in the Bible took place in the East, we should expect, among the natural products noticed, that those which appear from the earliest times to have been esteemed in these countries would be those mentioned.

But as

all are apt to undervalue the good which they possess, and think of it only when beyond their reach, so the Israelites in the desert longed for the delicious coolness of the melons of Egypt. Among these we may suppose both the melon and water-melon to have been included, and therefore both will be treated of in this article.

By the term Abattachim there is little doubt that melons are intended, as, when we remove the plural form im, we have a word very similar to the Arabic by Butikk, which is the name of the melon in that language. This appears, however, to be a generic term, inasmuch as they employ it simply to indicate the common or musk melon, while the water-melon is called Butikh-hindee, or Indian melon. The former is called in Persian khurpoozeh, and in Hindee khurbooja. It is probably a native of the Persian region, whence it has been carried south into India, and north into Europe, the Indian being a slight corruption of the Persian name. As the Arabian authors append fufash as the Greek name of butikh, which is considered to be the melon, it is evident that fufash must, in their estimation, be the same. From there being no p in Arabic, and as the diacritical point noon might, by transcribers, have easily been mistaken for that of shen, it is more than probable that this is intended for rénov, especially if we compare the description in Avicenna with that in Dioscorides. By Galen it was called Melopepo, from melo and pepo, the former from being roundish in form like the apple. The melon is supposed to have been the aíkvos of Theophrastus, and the σikvos Téπw of Hippo

crates. It was known to the Romans, and culti vated by Columella, with the assistance of some precaution at cold times of the year. It is said to have been introduced into this country about the year 1520, and was called musk-melon to distinguish it from the pumpkin, which was usually called melon.

The melon, being thus a native of warm climates, is necessarily tender in those of Europe, but, being an annual, it is successfully cultivated by gardeners with the aid of glass and artificial heat of about 75° to 80°. The fruit of the melon may be seen in great variety, whether with respect to the colour of its rind or of its flesh, its taste or its odour, and also its external form and size. The flesh is soft and succulent, of a white, yellowish, or reddish hue, of a sweet and pleasant taste, of an agreeable, sometimes musk-like odour, and forms one of the most delicious of fruits, which, when taken in moderation, is wholesome, but, like all other fruits of a similar kind, is liable to cause indigestion and diarrhoea when eaten in excess, especially by those unaccustomed to its use.

All travellers in Eastern countries have borne testimony to the refreshment and delight they have experienced from the fruit of the melon. But we shall content ourselves with referring to Alpinus, who, having paid particular attention to such subjects, says of the Egyptians, Fructibus, &c. se replent, ut ex iis solis sæpe cœnam, vel prandium perficiant, cujusmodi sunt precocia, cucurbitæ, pepones, melopepones; quorum quidem nomen genericum est Batech' (Rerum Ægypt. Hist. 1. 17). He also describes in the same chapter the kind of melon called Abdellavi, which, according to De Sacy, receives its name from having been introduced by Abdullah, a governor of Egypt under the Khalif Al Mamoon. It may be a distinct species, as the fruit is oblong, tapering at both ends, but thick in the middle, a figure (tab. xli.) is given in his work De Plantis Egypti; but Forskal applies this name also to the Chate, which is separately described by Alpinus, and a figure given by him at

tab. xl.

The Cucumis Chate is a villous plant with trailing stems, leaves roundish, bluntly angled, and toothed; the fruit pilose, elliptic, and tapering to both ends. Horum usum corporibus in cibo ipsis tum crudis, tum coctis vescentibus, salubrem esse apud omnes eorum locorum incolas creditur' (Âlpin. l. c. p. 54). Hasselquist calls this the Egyptian melon' and 'queen of cucumbers,' and says that it grows only in the fertile soil round Cairo; that the fruit is a little watery, and the flesh almost of the same substance as that of the melon, sweet and cool. This the grandees and Europeans in Egypt eat as the most pleasant fruit they find, and that from which they have the least to apprehend. It is the most excellent fruit of this tribe of any yet known' (Hasselquist, Travels, p. 258). Forskal, uniting the Abdellavi and Chate into one species, says it is the commonest of all fruits in Egypt, and is cultivated in all their fields, and that many prepare from it a very grateful drink (Flora Egyptiaco-Arabica, p. 168).

With the melon it is necessary to notice the Water-Melon, which is generally supposed to be specially indicated by the term Battich. But

this it would be difficult to determine in the affirmative in a family like the cucurbitaceæ, where there are so many plants like each other, both in their herbage and fruit. In the first place, the term Battich is rather generic than specific, and, therefore, if Abattachim were similarly employed, it might include the waternelon, but not to the exclusion of the others. In the second place, it is doubtful whether the water-melon was introduced into Egypt at a very early period, as we find no distinct mention of it in Greek writers. It is now common in all parts of Asia. It seems to have been first distinctly mentioned by Serapion under the name of Dullaha, which in the Latin translation is interpreted, id est melo magnus viridis;' and Sethio is quoted as the earliest author who ap plies the term 'Ayyoúpior to the water-melon, as has subsequently been frequently the case, though it is often distinguished as Anguria indica. Serapion, however, quotes Rhases, Meseha, and Ishmahelita. In the Persian books referred to in a Note, the author finds Battich hindee given as the Arabic of turbooz, which is the name as signed in India to the water-melon. So Alpinus, speaking of the anguria in Egypt, says, vulgo Batech el Maovi (water), et in Scriptoribus Medicis Batech-Indi vel Ánguria indica dicitur.' One of the Persian names is stated to be hinduanch. It may be indigenous to India, but it is difficult, in the case of this as of other long-cultivated plants, to ascertain its native country with certainty. For, even when we find such a plant apparently wild, we are not sure that the seed has not escaped from cultivation; and at present we know that the water-melon is cultivated in all parts of Asia, in the north of Africa, and in the south of Europe.

The water-melon is clearly distinguished by pinus as cultivated in Egypt, and called by the above names, 'quæ intus semina tantum, et aquam dulcissimam continent.' It is mentioned by Forskal, and its properties described by Hasselquist. Though resembling the other kinds very considerably in its properties, it is very different from them in its deeply-cut leaves, from which it is compared to a very different plant of this tribe-that is, the colocynth. Citrullus folio colocynthidis secto semine nigro.' A few others have cut leaves, but the watermelon is so distinguished among the edible species. The plant is hairy, with trailing cirrhiferous stems. The pulp abounds so much in watery juice, that it will run out by a hole made through the rind; and it is from this peculiarity that it has obtained the names of water-melon, melon d'eau, wasser-melon. Hasselquist says that it is cultivated on the banks of the Nile, in the rich clayey earth which subsides during the inundation, and serves the Egyptians for meat, drink, and physic. It is eaten in abundance, during the season, even by the richer sort of people; but the common people, on whom Providence hath bestowed nothing but poverty and patience, scarcely eat anything but these, and account this the best time of the year, as they are obliged to put up with worse at other seasons of the year' (Travels, p. 256).-J. F. R.

In concluding the first article in this work on the botany of the Bible, the author thinks it desirable to state the mode in which he has

studied the subject, and the grounds upon which he has formed his opinions, whether they agree with or differ from those of previous writers. He has already related, in his Essay on the Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine,' that his attention was first directed to the identification of the natural products mentioned in ancient authors, in consequence of being requested by the Medical Board of Bengal to investigate the medi cinal plants and drugs of India, for the purpose of ascertaining how far the public service might be supplied with medicines grown in India, instead of importing thein nearly all from foreign countries. In effecting this important object, his first endeavour was to make himself acquainted with the different drugs which the natives of India are themselves in the habit of employing as medicines. For this purpose he had to examine the things themselves, as well as to ascertain the names by which they were known. He therefore directed specimens of every article in the bazars to be brought to him, whether found wild in the country or the produce o culture-whether the result of home manufac ture or of foreign commerce-whether of the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdom-whether useful as food or as medicine, or employed in any of the numerous arts which minister to the wants or comforts of man. In order to acquire a knowledge of their names, he caused the native works on Materia Medica to be collated by competent hakeems and moonshees, and the several articles arranged under the three heads of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. The works collated were chiefly the Mukhzunal-Udwieh,' Tohfat-al-Moomeneen, Ihtiarut Buddie,' and Taleef Shereef,' all of them in Persian, but consisting principally of translations from Arabic authors. These were themselves indebted for much of their information respecting drugs to Dioscorides; but to his descriptions the Persians have fortunately appended the Asiatic synonymes, and references to some Indian products not mentioned in the works of the Arabs. The author himself made a catalogue of the whole, in which, after the most usually received, that is, the Arabic name, the several synonymes in Persian, Hindee, &c., as well as in metamorphosed Greek, were inserted. He traced the articles as much as possible to the plants, animals, and countries whence they were derived; and attached to them their natural history names, whenever he was successful in ascertaining them.

Being without any suitable library for such investigations, and being only able to obtain a small copy of Dioscorides, he was in most cases obliged to depend upon himself for the identification of the several substances. The results of several of these investigations are briefly recorded in his observations on the history and uses of the different natural families of plants, in his Illustrations of the Botany of the Himalayan Mountains.' The author also made use of these materials in his Essay on the Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine,' in tracing different Indian products from the works of the Arabs into those of the Greeks, even up to the time of Hippocrates. He inferred that tropical products could only travel from south to north, and that the Hindoos must have ascertained their properties, and used them as medicines, before they became sufh