| 
62 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
cooked ** Mescal’’ is much like half-made molasses candy 
into which oakum has been dipped. Professor Toumey 
writes that it has a sweet and not disagreeable taste, but 
that it has a smoky flavor arising from the method of 
cooking. 
By fermenting and distilling its juice the Indians make 
their drink called ‘‘ Mescal,’? which is very intoxicating, 
casting all records attributed to ‘‘ Jersey lightning,’’ most 
completely in the shade. Professor Toumey writes a very 
interesting letter in regard to finding a party of Pepago 
Indians in May, 1894, encamped in the Catalina mountains, 
fourteen miles north of Tucson, for the purpose of making 
‘¢Mescal’’ from A. Palmeri. He says the camp had a rank 
odor from the fermentation of the cooked mescal thrown 
about on all sides. On taking the mescal from the pit, it 
was put into large Indian baskets, and the women squatted 
down on the ground and stripped the epidermis and as 
many of the fibro-vascular bundles as possible from the 
cooked leaves. The prepared material was then spread on 
the ground or on blankets to dry. Large quantities of 
mescal are made by the Indians each spring, and carried 
back with them to their reservations, where it forms an 
important factor in their food supply throughout the year. 
Dr. Havard* says that the mescal pits are still seen in 
the Guadalupe Mountains, Texas, and that ‘‘ cooking 
develops a large proportion of grape sugar which exists 
in combination with citric acid as a citro-glucosid. It is set 
free by exposure to heat or by application of cold water.”’ 
He also says that the young leaves yield by pressure a juice 
which ‘‘ is slightly acidulous, laxative and diuretic, there- 
fore a good antiscorbutic.”’ 
Professor Toumey’s letter already referred to goes on to 
say that the epidermis and fibers, separated by the squaws 
from the edible portion of the mescal, are not thrown 
away, but are taken by the men, thoroughly washed and 
* Proceedings U.S. National Museum. 1885, viii. 519. 
