“apes 
but those nuts which measured as much in breadth as in 
length were the most esteemed ; and those which attained 
a foot in diameter were sold for one hundred and fifty 
crowns. Nay, some kings have been so greedy of obtain- 
ing these fruits, as to have given a loaded ship for a single 
one. 
The Chinese, as well as the natives of the Archipelago, 
are justly thought by Rumpuius to have set, perhaps, too 
high a value upon their medical properties, in considering 
them an antidote to all poisons. The principal virtue | 
resided in the meat or albumen, which lines the nut, and 
which is so hard and corneous, as to be preserved fora 
length of time after the embryo is destroyed. This sub- 
stance was triturated with water in vessels of porphyry, 
and, mingled with black and white, or red coral, ebony, 
and stags’ horns, was all drunk together. The Double Cocoa 
Nut was also thought serviceable in all inflammations of the 
body ; as a preservative against colic, apoplexy, epilepsy, 
paralysis, et id genus omne. 
The great men formed of the shell, which possesses fewer 
medicinal properties, precious vessels, cutting off a trans- 
verse slice, which constitutes the lid ; and in this they put 
their tobacco, betel, lime, and whatever else they masticate ; 
believing they can never then be contaminated by any 
thing noxious. Water kept in it is considered to preserve 
those who drink of it from every complaint. 
The discovery of the Seychelles Islands, and the know- 
ledge thence derived, that these nuts grew upon trees, as 
other Cocoa-nuts, soon reduced the value of this commodity ; 
and now, probably, by the Indians, as by the Europeans, it 
is only sought as a matter of curiosity, or for domestic 
purposes. The Botanical history of the tree, was, however, 
not the less a desideratum. The industrious Sonnerat 
ve a description of it, not a very scientific one, indeed, 
in his excellent Voyage 4 la Nouvelle Guinée, when he 
landed upon the Isle Praslin, or Isle des Palmiers, one of 
ie Seychelles. The Tree is represented in the ong oo 
is work, and again in the frontispiece, and the Fruit, 
nd sections of the Nut and the male Spadix, are 
the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh plates: he 
the tree into the Isle of France. Commerson 
MSS., under the name of Lodoicea, which 
3 stly, La Bintarpiere, in the 
m d’Histoire Natu- 
of it, and figures, from 
