According to Herodotus (born 484 B.C.), the Scythians used hemp, but in his time the Greeks were scarcely acquainted with it.[715] Hiero II., King of Syracuse, bought the hemp used for the cordage of his vessels in Gaul, and Lucilius is the earliest Roman writer who speaks of the plant (100 B.C.). Hebrew books do not mention hemp.[716] It was not used in the fabrics which enveloped the mummies of ancient Egypt. Even at the end of the eighteenth century it was only cultivated in Egypt for the sake of an intoxicating liquid extracted from the plant.[717] The compilation of Jewish laws known as the Talmud, made under the Roman dominion, speaks of its textile properties as of a little-known fact.[718] It seems probable that the Scythians transported this plant from Central Asia and from Russia when they migrated westward about 1500 B.C., a little before the Trojan war. It may also have been introduced by the earlier incursions of the Aryans into Thrace and Western Europe; yet in that case it would have been earlier known in Italy. Hemp has not been found in the lake-dwellings of Switzerland[719] and Northern Italy.[720] The observations on the habitat of _Cannabis sativa_ agree perfectly with the data furnished by history and philology. I have treated specially of this subject in a monograph in _Prodromus_, 1869.[721] The species has been found wild, beyond a doubt, to the south of the Caspian Sea,[722] in Siberia, near the Irtysch, in the desert of the Kirghiz, beyond Lake Baikal, in Dahuria (government of Irkutsh). Authors mention it also throughout Southern and Central Russia, and to the south of the Caucasus,[723] but its wild nature is here less certain, seeing that these are populous countries, and that the seeds of the hemp are easily diffused from gardens. The antiquity of the cultivation of hemp in China leads me to believe that its area extends further to the east, although this has not yet been proved by botanists.[724] Boissier mentions the species as “almost wild in Persia.” I doubt whether it is indigenous there, since in that case the Greeks and Hebrews would have known of it at an earlier period. +White Mulberry+—_Morus alba_, Linnæus. The mulberry tree, which is most commonly used in Europe for rearing silkworms, is _Morus alba_. Its very numerous varieties have been carefully described by Seringe,[725] and more recently by Bureau.[726] That most widely cultivated in India, _Morus indica_, Linnæus (_Morus alba_, var. _Indica_, Bureau), is wild in the Punjab and in Sikkim, according to Brandis, inspector-general of forests in British India.[727] Two other varieties, _serrata_ and _cuspidata_, are also said to be wild in different provinces of Northern India.[728] The Abbé David found a perfectly wild variety in Mongolia, described under the name of _mongolica_ by Bureau; and Dr. Bretschneider[729] quotes a name _yen_, from ancient Chinese authors, for the wild mulberry.