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THE JOURNAL 



WOOD 

 HOLE, 



MASS. 



OF THE 



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On the Kola Bean (Cola Acuminata). 

 By Hahnemann Errs, Associate of King's College, London. 



Bead Sept. 24, 1SS6. 



This equivalent, throughout tropical and equatorial Africa, of 

 tea, coffee, mate, cocoa, &c, has probably been used from time 

 immemorial. 



The Kola is a tree 30 to 60 feet high, belonging to the 

 SterculiacecBj of which the Tkeobroma Cacao is a well-known 

 member (Hooker). It yields about a cwt. of seeds annually, in 

 two crops, the seeds or beans being enclosed in pods containing not 

 more than 15. Specimens of these beans, both fresh and dry, are 

 here to-night, also a small growing tree. In this paper it is hardly 

 necessary to describe the form of the beans, but it will be as well 

 to give the principal features of their latest analysis, so that the 

 extraordinary properties claimed for them from time to time, during 

 the 50 years and more that scientific attention has been directed to 

 them, may be the better appreciated. 



Analysis. — (Lascelles-Scott, 1886). 



