tion of the botanical, and zoological names that occur in the Bible are unnecessarily transferred! "Not being a zoologist, botanist, or mineralogist," wrote a distinguished translator, "I have not unfrequently, in disposing of technical terms whose meaning I could not satisfactorily settle, gone the whole animal, plant, or mineral, as the case might be, and transferred it."

In this way many words are transferred for which there are good vernacular names, and a native has in his Bible a barbarous word that conveys no idea, while it may be the original designates a flower, that is wafting its fragrance within the lattice where he sits reading. This is no fancy sketch. The camphire of the English Bible, the exquisitely fragrant Lawsonia inermis, or henna, is rendered in one Indian version by camphor, and in another the name is transferred, while the shrub itself is growing by the doors of myriads of native houses in both Indias, and for which there are established vernacular names in every Indian language to which I can refer.

Such transfers always cast a deep shadow over the signification of the passage in which they occur, and sometimes wrap it in impenetrable darkness. For instance; Christ says to the Scribes and Pharisees: "Ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith.' Here the antithesis can only be seen by a knowledge of the trifling character of mint, anise, and cummin; yet in two Indian versions every one of these names is transferred, which renders the clause, without a paraphrase, as unintelligible as the English Bible would be with as many Choctaw words in their place. Still, nothing could be more unnecessary, for the readers of the versions are nearly as familiar with mint, anise, and cummin, as the people of Europe, and have as well established names for them in their language.

In two versions, made several thousand miles apart, the translators, transferred the original word for wood-aloes, although the people for whom they wrote were well acquainted with it, and there were good terms in the languages in which they were translating by which to render

the word, but of both facts the translators were manifestly ignorant.

These examples, which might be easily multiplied, illustrate the advantages which a translator with some knowledge of the natural sciences, possesses in dealing with the Word of God. But the reader asks, "why need he enter scientifically into these studies? Why does he not take the lexicons, and other helps prepared for him?"

Many are the admirers of nature, but let it not be supposed that all are her observing students. The pages of learned men in Europe and America, who have incidentally written upon natural history, prove that they are

not.

Rosenmuller is the author of the best work extant on the botany of the Bible, yet his unskillful treatment of the subject sufficiently attests his slight knowledge of the science. His descriptions are usually ill written, and bring before the eye of the reader no definite picture. They are often moreover very defective, giving popular names, as beans and lentils, which are indefinite and applicable to different species and even to different genera, without the systematic names, which alone are determinate and enable a translator to render accurately. Occasionally his statements are erroneous. Of agallochum or wood-aloes he says: "There is a species of this tree that grows in the Moluccas, called garo, Linnæus has described it as Exacaria agallocha." It would perhaps be difficult to find two trees in the whole vegetable kingdom with more opposite properties, than these two species. The Burmese are well aquanted with both. Mr. O'Riley observed correctly that," Akyau is a very fragrant, and a very scarce wood of high value with the natives." This is agallochum or wood-aloes.* The other is a tree that the Burmese call ta-yau,t abundant near the sea, the juice of which is said to produce the most intense pain, and often blindness if it enters the eye. From its power to produce blindness the Karens call it the "blind tree;" and the natives are all of them so

much afraid of it, that I have sometimes found it difficult to induce my boatmen to pull up beneath its shade.

In Carpenter's Natural History of the Bible, a popular English work, reprinted by Abbott in America, a description of the gecko is given worthy of the days of King Arthur. "It is thus described," says the author, "by Cepede Of all the oviparous quadrupeds whose history we are publishing, this is the first that contains a deadly poison. This deadly lizard, which deserves all our attention by his dangerous properties, has some resemblance to the chameleon. The name gecko, imitates the cry of this animal, which is heard especially before rain. It is found in Egypt, India, Amboyna, &c. It inhabits by choice the crannies of half rotton trees, as well as humid places. It is sometimes met with in houses, where it occasions great alarm, and where every exertion is used to destroy it speedily. Bontius states, that its bite is so venomous, that if the part bitten be not cut away or burned, death ensues in a few hours.'"

It is well known in India that the gecko is as harmless as the cricket. I have had them drop from the ceiling upon my naked hand, and hang suspended by the feet from my fingers without the slightest pain or inflammation ensuing.

Stuart on Rev. 21: 18, says: "" The bottom row of foundation stones was jasper-which is of a green transparent colour, streaked with red veins." Such a definition of jasper I have never been able to find in any work on mineralogy; and Webster, following Dana, defines it: "An opake impure variety of quartz, of red, yellow, and also of some dull colours." The distinctivé character of jasper from other minerals that resemble it, is "its opacity." The Greek word as used by the Apostle, undoubtedly designated the stone now called heliotrope or blood-stone-a mineral of a remarkably deep, rich, green; and translucent, but spotted with opake red spots, supposed to be red jasper. There is in it something peculiarly agreeable to the eye above all other precious stones I ever saw, or that probably exist; and were heliotrope inserted in the version; the imagination of ev

ery reader would picture to himself a foundation for the Heavenly Jerusalem of the pleasantest stone for the eye to gaze upon, that earth can produce.

Murray, in his Encyclopedia of Geography, the first work of its class, says: "To the fig tribe belongs the famous banyan of India, commonly called peepul tree, and constantly planted about Hindoo temples (Ficus religiosa.)" But the famous banyan is not commonly called peepul, but bir; and the peepul is not the banyan, and the tree which is usually planted about Hindu temples is not the banyan, but the peepul, and the banyan is not Ficus religiosa, but Ficus indicus. Again, he remarks: "Far superior to this [the cocoa] in the magnitude of its leaves, of which a single one will shelter twelve men, is the palmyra palm (Borassus flabelliformis,) which sometimes attains to one hundred feet, while its trunk yields abundantly toddy or palm wine."

It is true the palmyra produces toddy, not however from the trunk, but from the spathes that bear the flowers and fruit, but the leaf of the palmyra is not much larger than a large cabbage leaf, and the reference to the leaf should have been to the great fan palm of Ceylon, Corypha umbraculifera, a palm not of the same genus with the palmyra.

In a little work published by the American Tract Society, it is written: "In some hot countries where water is scarce, travellers obtain a supply from the palm tree;" and the statement is illustrated by a very good representation of the common plantain tree, with a fine stream of water gushing from an incision that has been made in the trunk !

The writer had probably some confused ideas of the palm producing toddy, or the traveller's tree, handsome urania, which produces water when a leaf is broken off; or of the water-vine, phytocrene, an immense creeper that grows on our thirsty mountain sides, which when dissevered discharges a large quantity of water, that is a most grateful beverage in a hot day, when far above the streams of the vallies.

In one of the elaborate volumes of the United States Exploring Expedition it is said: "In its wild state the peacock is peculiar to Hindustan ;" while they are_roving wild all over these Provinces, Arracan, and the Burman Empire. Webster defines dammer as "a resinous substance, obtained from a species of agathis or dammara, a tree allied to the pines," while here it is obtained from the wood-oil tree family; and a considerable proportion of what Europeans often call dammer, is a hard kind of bees' wax, produced by a bee that builds in hollow trees.t

With teachers like these Europeans and Americans come to India, and find themselves in the midst of a fauna and flora with which they are utterly unacquainted. In sections where there are lexicons that define correctly the vernacular names, the difficulty is scarcely felt. In Wilson's Sanscrit Dictionary, for instance, the systematic name of nearly every plant and animal known to the language, can be found at once; but if, as in Farther India, the lexicographers are as much in the dark as the inquirer who consults them, he has no alternative but to remain in darkness, or sit down to the patient study of the objects themselves. And to this toil the translator of the Scriptures must address himself, for it is not optional with him, but is a part of his professional duty to render, if possible, every word of the original by its corresponding word in the vernacular, and he is so far wanting in the trust committed to him by the churches or societies whose ambassador he is, if he shrinks from any study requisite to qualify him for the accurate performance of his work.

In ordinary circumstances, the professional duties of most men preclude them from bestowing the time and attention to the natural sciences, necessary to enable them to determine accurately the character of the objects of nature with which they are unacquainted. It is not remarkable then that our Chin-Indian literature abounds in errors. Throughout India, wherever there is European society, there is found a numerous class of English names incorrectly applied to Indian productions, which almost unavoid† ပွဲရက်။