HARD WICKE 'S SCIENCE - GOSSIP. 



131 



shrivelled and black, and is known as "pepper- 

 corns." The white pepper is produced by allowing 

 the fruit to ripen, and removing the pulp by macera- 

 tion, or, as has been done in this country, removing 

 the dry, black skins of the black pepper by mecha- 

 nical agency. 



It has been ascertained that pepper contains a 

 peculiar neutral principle called ' ' piperine, " an acrid 

 resin, a volatile oil, gum, starch, malic, and tartaric 

 acids, <S:c. That known in commerce as "ground 

 pepper" is usually adulterated with flour, sago, &c., 

 which may easily be detected with the microscope. 



that in the fifth century Attila demanded, among 

 other things, three thousand pounds of pepper in 

 ransom for the city of Rome. 



The following description of the plant was given 

 by Sir John Mandeville, who travelled in the four- 

 teenth century, which applies now, with some ex- 

 ceptions. He writes : — " The Peper growethe in 

 manner as doth a wyld vine, that is planted fast by 

 the trees of the woodee for to susteynen it by, as doth 

 the vyne, and the fruyt thereof hangethe in manere 

 as reysinges ; and the tree is so thikke charged that 

 it semethe that it wolde bi-eke ; and when it is ripe it 

 is all grene, as it were ivy 

 berryes ; and then men kytten 

 hem as men doe the vynes ; and 

 then they putten it upon an 

 owven, and there it waxeth blak 

 and crisp." 



OUR COMMON BRITISH 

 FOSSILS, AND WHERE 

 TO FIND THEM. 



Fig. 114. Pz/£r fn'^rum {rsdnc^d). 



Piperine, when perfectly pure, is in colourless 

 crystals, neutral, and not alkaline. Pelletier says 

 that when quite pure it is tasteless ; Dr. Christison, 

 however, states that the very whitest crystals he ever 

 found were very acrid. The resin is very acrid and 

 pungent ; and it is thought by some that the proper- 

 ties of pepper depend chiefly upon the resin. 



Its uses as a universal condiment are too well 

 known to need further remark. It is used to a small 

 extent in medicine. 



The uses of pepper were known from the earliest 

 times of which we have any record. It is frequently 

 mentioned by ancient Roman writers, and it is related 



No. V. 



By J. E. Taylor, F.L.S., 

 F.G.S. &c. 



PERHAPS there are no fossils 

 with which the delighted 

 young geologist so soon becomes 

 acquainted as those called £ncri- 

 nites. Especially is this the case 

 if his attention has fii-st been called 

 to rocks of the Palaeozoic period. 

 The limestones of the Silurian, 

 Devonian, and Carboniferous 

 epochs are often crowded with 

 the varied remains of the fossils 

 which half-popularly and half- 

 scientifically come imder the de- 

 nominational name of Encrhiites. 

 It is tme, the student frequently 

 has hazy, and even erroneous, 

 notions as to what they really 

 are. But that is then a secondary 

 consideration. The most impor- 

 tant to him is that they are fossils 

 — remains of creatures which actually lived millions 

 of years ago, in other seas than any now existing, 

 and that he has collected them with his own hand. 

 The first flush of geological investigation surrounds 

 these common paloeontological objects with a halo 

 of interest, which is not eclipsed even by fuller and 

 more accurate knowledge of them. They are the 

 pegs on which sunny holiday rambles have been 

 hung,— rambles which, even after the lapse of years, 

 cannot be remembered without their recalling the 

 perfume of the heather, the hum of insects, the glint 

 of sunshine on distant streams, and the shadows cast 

 by cumulous clouds on the brown slopes of sunht hills ! 



