332 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



accumulating and forming morasses in which forest trees would not 

 grow. In districts where there was not much rain, there might be 

 much moisture in the atmosphere ; rain in general supplied only a very 

 small quantity of the water required by plants. Vegetable physiology 

 afforded no explanation of the effects on climate, attributed by some 

 observers to forests. 



THE OPIUM TRADE. 



FROM an essay published by Dr. Nathan Allen, on the history, ex- 

 tent, and effects of the opium trade, as earned on in India and China, 

 we compile the following information in regard to this demoralizing 

 traffic: Opium, as is well known, is the production of the plant 

 Papaver somniferum, called in English the Poppy. This plant was 

 originally a native of Persia, but is now found growing as an orna- 

 mental plant in gardens throughout the civilized world. It is most ex- 

 tensively cultivated in India, where it is estimated that more than 

 100,000 acres of the rich plains of that country are occupied for this 

 purpose, giving employment to many thousands of men, women and 

 children. Its cultivation throughout is very simple. The seed is sown 

 in November, and the juice is collected during a period of about six 

 weeks in February and March. The falling of the flowers from the 

 plant is the signal for making incisions, which is done in the cool of 

 the evening, with hooked knives, in a circular manner, around the cap- 

 sules. From these incisions a white, milky juice exudes, which is 

 concreted into a dark-brown mass by the heat of the next day's sun ; 

 and this being scraped off every evening as the plant continues to ex- 

 ude, it constitutes opium in its crude state. India, it is said, produces 

 forty thousand chests of opium annually, each chest varying in weight 

 from 125 to 140 pounds. Two of the principal localities for the culti- 

 vation of this drug, in Bengal, are subject to the East India Company, 

 and the manufacture and traffic in it is a strict monopoly of the govern- 

 ment. In the others, there is a most oppressive system of espionage 

 established over the natives, to an extent which throws the control of 

 the traffic into the hands of the same Company. On that which is 

 raised in Malwa, a province lying in the western part of India, beyond 

 the East India Company's control, and which, in order to reach Bom- 

 bay, the principal market, has to pass through certain territories of the 

 Company, a transit duty of 400 rupees is levied. The income from 

 this tax, in 1846, was 1,000,000, which, with the revenue received 

 the same year at Calcutta from the article, makes the sum total of 

 income to the Company from it 3,000,000. 



The idea of sending opium from Bengal to China originated in 1707. 

 From this time to 1794, the trade in it met with but poor success. In 

 the latter year the English succeeded in stationing one of their ships 

 laden with opium at Whampoa, where, for more than a year, she lay 

 unmolested, selling out her cargo. In 1821, owing to the difficulties 

 attending the sale at these places, the opium merchants withdrew all 

 their vessels from Whampoa and Macao, and stationed them under the 

 shelter of Lintin Island, in the bay, at the entrance of Canton river, 



