Note 92 — VI. Report upon the New or Rare Plants which flowered in the Garden of the Horticultural Society at Chiswick, between March, 1825, and March, 1826. Part 1. Tender Plants. By John Lindley, Esq. ◊ (continued 6)

53 Count Bournon; Phil. Mag., vol. lvii., p. 458.

54 Strahlenberg, p. 405.

55 Dr. Plott’s History of Oxf., p. 161.

56 Phil. Trans. Abridged, vol. iv., part ii., p. 273.

57 Cuvier, Theory of the Earth.

58 In the American Quarterly Review, published at Philadelphia, March, 1827. Art. “Fossil Remains.”

59 Titles, “Werner,” “Fletz,” “Transition.”

60 See two dissertations on the Geology of the U. S. of N. America, by W. M’Clure, Esq., in the Transactions of the Amer. Phil. Soc., new series, vol. i., Philadelphia, 1818. This gentleman had entertained a different view in the previous volume; but after eight years’ experience, in Europe and America, he had the philosophical justice, boldly to amend his former opinions.

61 See Phil. Trans. Abridged, vol. iv., part ii., p. 236 to 245, and Camden’s Brit., Gough’s Ed., 1789, vol. iii., 604.

62 Essay on the Antiquity of the Irish Language, by Lieut. Col. Vallancey, 8vo., London, 1818, p. 12.

63 See Gibbon, ch. xxvii., Zosimus, b. iv., Rapin, b. i., Wars and Sports, ch. xiii.

64 Life of Agricola.

65 Parkinson, vol. iii., letter 26. Mr. P. relates that Baron Cuvier inclines to doubt the authenticity of this account; but Capt. Cochrane’s testimony now renders it very probable to be correct. It is very worthy of remark, that the wild elephants in America are found, as reported, at Choco, and west of the Missouri; and that Mango Capac and Montezuma’s ancestor, by the traditions, landed at Cape St. Helen’s and Culiacan,—as if some elephants had been let loose, or had escaped and betaken themselves to perhaps the nearest thick forests, and have remained there undisturbed.

66 Rees’s Cyclopedia, Addenda, “Mastodon.”

67 See Parkinson, vol. iii., letter 26, p. 367.

68 Duchat, an author of unquestioned credit, has seen recent wood petrified into flint by the water of a river in Ava. Rees’s Cyc., “Wood.”

69 Levesque, Hist. de Russie, vol. vii. 244.

70 Wars and Sports, p. 263.

71 Conquest of Peru, ch. x. It is somewhat curious that, when Pyrrhus for the first time brought elephants into Italy, the Romans gave them the name of Lucanian bulls; and that the Americans call them big bulls in their traditions. It is probable that both people compared them with the largest beast known to them; as elephants, if indigenous in america before the arrival of Mango Capac and Montezuma’s ancestor, would have been extremely numerous, and have had a proper name.

72 Shakspeare spells this name Cymbeline; Milton writes Kymbeline, which is probably the true pronunciation: see his History, 8vo. 1695, p. 62.

73 Wars and Sports, p. 269.

74 Id. p. 506. The Burmans eat elephants. The writer was at Dacca in 1794, when some Burmese troops invaded the Chittagong frontier. An expedition, under Colonel Erskine, was sent against them; and on the return to Dacca of Colonel Boujonnar’s battalion, the officers told the writer that they found in the stockade the skeleton of an elephant, which the Burmans had devoured.

75 Conquest of Mexico and Peru, p. 288–301.

76 Hakluyt, vol. iv., p. 558; and Conquest of Peru and Mexico, ch. vii.

77 A Roman coin is said to have been discovered recently among the Indians in America, which has justly created surprise; but others have been found long ago. Bishop Hakewill’s book is dated A.D. 1635: he says, “Marianus Siculus, in his history of Spain, reports that certain coined pieces of gold, engraved with the image and inscription of Augustus Cæsar, were found in the American mines; thereby inferring that those countries were then discovered.” p. 310. Batou, the cousin of Kublai, both grandsons of Genghis, had conquered Russia, ravaged Europe to the Adriatic, and died on his march to Constantinople, in 1256. His successor also ravaged as far as Constantinople, (P. de la Croix, p. 387.) Mango (so spelt by Du Halde, ii., 251, and Maundeville, p. 275; Manku by Tooke, Russ. Emp., ii., 13) was brother to Kublai, who is considered by the writer to be the father of the first Inca, and there is nothing more probable than that he and other Moguls on the Japanese expedition may have possessed Roman coins, the plunder of Hungary, Poland, Dalmatia, and the Greek empire, as far as the capital.

78 Cuvier, Theory of the Earth, p. 257.

79 Conq. of Peru, &c. plate iv.

80 Theory of the Earth, p. 67.

81 Herodotus, Thalia xcix. Rees’s Cyc., “Sumatra.”

82 Wars and Sports, p. 335.

83 Travels of Lewis Vertomanus to Egypt, Arabia, &c., A.D. 1503, in Galvano’s collection. Hakluyt, vol, iv., p. 162.

84 Wars and Sports, p. 354.

85 See Cuvier’s Theory of the Earth, p. 80. Wars and Sports, p. 335. With regard to the unicorn, Camper has remarked, that “if this animal was ruminant and cloven-footed, it is certain that its frontal bone must have been divided longitudinally into two, and that it could not possibly have had a horn placed upon the suture.” This remark by Camper, when we consider how nature adapts every thing to its purposes, cannot stand as a real objection to the existence of the oryx. The most eminent naturalists have been wrong in some of their conjectures. John Hunter pronounced the mastodon to be a carnivorous beast. Buffon, after frequently considering the bones of the mammoth, conceived them to belong to a beast six times larger than the biggest elephant; and Muller was of opinion that it must have been 105 feet in height, and 133 in length! So little capable is any human being to judge what nature does, or can do!

86 See Relation of Master Wm. Jobson in Purchas, vol. ii, p. 921.

87 Conq. of Peru; p. 450.

88 New London Literary Gazette, Oct. 13, 1827, p. 303.

89 Common Sense Newspaper, No. 60.

90 Cuvier’s Theory of the Earth, p. 291.

91 Shaw’s Zool., III. pt. 1. Rees’s Cyc. “Tortoise.”

92 Ibid.

93 Milton’s Hist. 8vo. p. 62.

94 Cuvier, Ossemens Fossiles, p. 185.

95 Ed. New Phil. Journal, Sept. 1827, p. 390. Here is a direct instance, that if a fossil Egyptian camelopard had been found, it would, like elephants, &c., have been pronounced to be an extinct species, the modern specimens being from South Africa.

96 Pliny, b. viii.

97 Ayeen Akbery, vol. i. p. 242.

98 Herodotus, Clio, cxci. We may conjecture that tiger has been written for leopard, a frequent error.

99 Montfaucon, vol. iii. p. 179.

100 Augustan History, “Severus,” p. 253. “Wherever Caracalla wintered, or but intended to winter, they were constrained to erect amphitheatres and cirques for public games, and those within a while were taken down again.”—Hakewill’s Apology, p. 443. Caracalla was three years at York; and Spartian, in his Life of Severus, relates, that among other omens just before that emperor died, (at York,) three figures of Victory, which stood upon the platform near the throne, were blown down while the games of the circus were celebrating. There was a Roman road from York to Whitby (Dunus Sinus), and Kirkdale is about half way between the port and the capital.

101 Rees’s Cyc. “Cahors.”

102 Marquis Maffei, p. 260.

103 Herodian, “Commodus.”

104 The Tartar opens a vein of his horse and drinks the blood.

105 Martial (Elphinston’s, p. 19) on the Sports of Domitian.

106 Satire iii.

107 Cuvier. Theory of the Earth, pp. 89 and 263.

108 The emperors had their families and the whole Roman court with them. The celebrated Julia Domna, and her sister Julia Mesa, were there during those three years. See De Serviez, Roman Empresses, vol. ii. p. 239.

109 Passage des Alpes par Annibal, d’après la narration de Polybe. Comparée aux récherches faites sur les lieux, par J. A. De Luc. Géneve, 1818.

110 Wars and Sports, p. 295.

111 Gibbon, ch. xix. p. 177.

112 Catrou, vol. ii. p. 591.

113 Livy, b. xxi. ch. v.; b. xxiv. ch. xlii.

114 De la Croix. Hist. of Genghis, b. iii. ch. vii.

115 Sir John Chardin, vol. ii. 33.

116 Sir William Jones, vol. v. 588. The above may possibly mean a cross breed of the two beasts, which we find is still practised in Cabulistan, as related in the Ayeen Akbery.

117 See Rees’s Cyc. “Strata.”

118 Hakewill’s Apology, p. 229.

119 Young. Night VI.