Talk:A Dictionary of the Economic Products of India
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How the work was read
- The volumes and dates come from the entry for the Dictionary in Stafleu and Cowan's Taxonomic Literature, 2nd ed., vol. VII, pp. 108–109 (no. 16.831), read in the Smithsonian Libraries' online text. The entry ranges of the volumes come from the Wellcome Collection's catalogue record of the 1972 Cosmo reprint (record t9yfhhda) and agree with the Cambridge University Press descriptions of its 2014 reissue, which also print the last entry as Zygophillum.
- The hemp article was read in full in the House of Commons return of 1893, where it fills pp. 155–174 under the heading "Extracted from the 'Dictionary of the Economic Products of India,' Vol. II., pages 103–126". The copy read is the Gokhale Institute scan (DSpace 10973/38192). In the Gokhale scan the printed page is the PDF page less one. Every quotation in the article was checked on the page images of the return. Locators to the return are its printed pages.
- Locators to vol. II itself (pp. 104, 109, 109–110 and 112) are those already used on the George Watt article, where they were read on the page images of the Internet Archive scan. The scan of vol. II was not reopened for this page.
- Responses of 1893–94 were read on the page images of the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission's vol. III (Stoker, p. 39; Walker, p. 46; Horne, p. 82; Gunion, p. 159) and in the National Library of Scotland copy of Prain's report (p. 10).
Dates of the first volume
Taxonomic Literature dates vol. I to 1885 (preface 1 July 1885) and lists a reissue of 1889 (preface 1 January 1889). The Cambridge University Press reissue describes the work as first published in six volumes between 1889 and 1893, and the Wellcome record notes "First published, 1889-96". Both later descriptions follow the 1889 issue of vol. I. The article gives both dates.
The 1887 pamphlet
Chattopadhyaya's bibliography lists Hemp or Cannabis Sativa, Linn., Being an Enlargement of the Article in the "Dictionary of the Economic Products of India" (Simla, Revenue and Agricultural Department, 1887), and his first chapter quotes its pp. 1 and 10. In his text he calls the Dictionary Watt's "prior publication". The Madras memorandum to the commission (p. 82) mentions "the pamphlet on hemp by Dr. Watt" sent to the Board of Revenue for remarks, and the Punjab memorandum (p. 46) a "draft article" in the Dictionary. How the 1887 pamphlet relates to the text of vol. II (1889) has not been checked against a copy of the pamphlet.
Wording of the reprint and of vol. II
The George Watt article quotes vol. II, p. 109, as introducing the Bengal abstract with "from these works, and the writer's own personal observations". The 1893 reprint reads at the same point "From these works, supplemented by several less important publications and Government reports, the following abstract regarding Indian cultivation has been prepared" (p. 160). The two printings may differ in wording here. Neither phrase is quoted in this article.
The margin paragraph numbers visible in the reprint run from 331 to 379. Cross-references in the text ("No. 267", "No. 336", "No. 399") do not all fall within that range and were not traced.
Particular readings
- "Mr. Sylvester de Lacy" is printed so in the reprint (p. 159), in the derivation of "assassin". The article quotes the name as printed.
- Momea. The passage (pp. 165–166) also says that the belief about labourers being made into momea came out "in an alarming manner" on a recent expedition into Kullu. It concerns emigration, not cannabis, and is not used.
- Spellings of trade names follow the reprint: chúr, rorá, pattar, bilúchar, phúl-bhang, gul-bhang, májun.
- Chakravarthy (1975). Only the article's title and the summary in Taxonomic Literature (vol. VII, p. 109) were read. The article quotes the title only.