CYCLOPÆDIA AND OF OF INDIA EASTERN AND SOUTHERN ASIA, Commercial, Industrial and Scientific: PRODUCTS OF THE MINERAL, VEGETABLE AND ANIMAL KINGDOMS, EDITED BY EDWARD BALFOUR, L. R. C. S. E., DEPUTY INSPECTOR GENERAL OF HOSPITALS, MADRAS ARMY, PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. WHILST we find books of reference in most departments of Science and Literature in connection with European countries, daily becoming cheaper and more abundant, those who investigate or seek for information regarding the resources of British India, or any of the scientific and economic subjects connected with Eastern countries, still meet with much difficulty and hindrance, owing to the necessity of consulting numerous authors whose works are scarce or costly. And as some inquirers are without the pecuniary means of procuring all the requisite books and journals, or find it impossible to procure, them at any cost, whilst others want leisure or opportunity for such extensive research; it is evident that progress in these branches of knowledge would be greatly facilitated, by collecting and condensing this widely dispersed information, thereby enabling future inquirers to gain some acquaintance with the results of the investigations made by the many diligent and laborious individuals, who have devoted a great portion of their time to collecting information over the vast area of Southern Asia. My avocations while employed in India, more particularly in the past seven years, have rendered necessary for me a collection of books of reference relating to India and the East, somewhat more numerous and varied in character than private individuals generally possess; whilst my employment as Secretary to the Madras Central Committees for the Great Exhibition of 1851, the Madras Exhibition of 1855, the Universal Exhibition held in Paris in 1855, and the Madras Exhibition of 1857, combined with my duties (since 1851), as Officer in charge of the Government Central Museum, have brought under my notice a rare variety of Eastern products and subjects of interest; and thinking that, before quitting the countries in which I have dwelt for nearly a quarter of a century, I might with advantage Lave to my successors in a portable form, the notes made on the products of the East that have come under my notice, combined with an abstract of the useful infor |