than there is in all the druggists’ shops—­surely all this is a knowledge not beneath the notice of any enterprising officer, above all of an officer of engineers.  I only ask anyone who thinks that I may be in the right, to glance through the lists of useful vegetable products given in Lindley’s ’Vegetable Kingdom’—­a miracle of learning—­and see the vast field open still to a thoughtful and observant man, even while on service; and not to forget that such knowledge, if he should hereafter leave the service and settle, as many do, in a distant land, may be a solid help to his future prosperity.  So strongly do I feel on this matter, that I should like to see some knowledge at least of Dr. Oliver’s excellent little ‘First Book of Indian Botany’ required of all officers going to our Indian Empire:  but as that will not be, at least for many a year to come, I recommend any gentlemen going to India to get that book, and wile away the hours of the outward voyage by acquiring knowledge which will be a continual source of interest, and it may be now and then of profit, to them during their stay abroad.

And for geology, again.  As I do not expect you all, or perhaps any of you, to become such botanists as General Monro, whose recent ’Monograph of the Bamboos’ is an honour to British botanists, and a proof of the scientific power which is to be found here and there among British officers:  so I do not expect you to become such geologists as Sir Roderick Murchison, or even to add such a grand chapter to the history of extinct animals as Major Cautley did by his discoveries in the Sewalik Hills.  Nevertheless, you can learn—­and I should earnestly advise you to learn—­geology and mineralogy enough to be of great use to you in your profession, and of use, too, should you relinquish your profession hereafter.  It must be profitable for any man, and specially for you, to know how and where to find good limestone, building stone, road metal; it must be good to be able to distinguish ores and mineral products; it must be good to know—­as a geologist will usually know, even in a country which he sees for the first time—­where water is likely to be found, and at what probable depth; it must be good to know whether the water is fit for drinking or not, whether it is unwholesome or merely muddy; it must be good to know what spots are likely to be healthy, and what unhealthy, for encamping.  The two last questions depend, doubtless, on meteorological as well as geological accidents:  but the answers to them will be most surely found out by the scientific man, because the facts connected with them are, like all other facts, determined by natural laws.  After what one has heard, in past years, of barracks built in spots plainly pestilential; of soldiers encamped in ruined cities, reeking with the dirt and poison of centuries; of—­but it is not my place to find fault; all I will say is, that the wise and humane officer, when once his eyes are opened to the