102 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 



Thomas Leary, Esq., A.B., Kilkenny College, was admitted a member. 

 Robert Curtis, Esq., read a paper on M The evil effects of Intoxicating Liquors ;" 

 and Mr. Robertson read the following paper: — 



THE PALMYRA PALM, DATE-TREE, AND SAGO PLANT. 



I feel happy in being able to contribute to our Society's Museum, a curiosity 

 lately forwarded to me from the South of India. In presenting it, I will avail my- 

 self of the opportunity to give some account of my donation, as I will thus be 

 enabled to indulge my partiality to speak about " Trees and Plants," by offering a 

 few remarks on two or three species of the palm tribe — a family of plants which has 

 many claims upon our attention, particularly in a commercial point of view, as but 

 few of its species are without some useful property. 



The cocoa-nut and the date are valued for their fruit, which yield food, drink, 

 and oil ; the fan -palm and many others for their foliage, whose durability and hard- 

 ness render it a good material for thatching ; it is also used to form sunshades 

 wherewith to screen the natives of tropical countries from the scorching rays of a 

 vertical sun ; again, the sweet juice of the Palmyra palm, when fermented, yields a 

 sort of arrack, the favourite, but intoxicating liquor of the Indian; the pith of the 

 sago palm abounds in nutritive starch, whilst other species supply, in their leaves 

 and trunks, materials for cordage and elastic timber. 



The antiquity of the palms is worthy of our notice ; that they were amongst the 

 first plants which were created is proved by the numerous remains of their fruit, 

 leaves, and stems, which occur in the coal formations of northern countries. I 

 exhibit two specimens of these fossil remains, one of them was found in the coal 

 district of Slievardagh, in the county of Tipperary, it appears to belong to the order 

 Cycadece, a class of plants which forma connecting link between the palms and tree 

 ferns. The other specimen has been presented to me by Mr. Butler, of Woodstock, 

 who describes it as being a part of the stem of the date tree {Phoenix dactylifera), of 

 which more hereafter. 



I cannot pass over the fact of the remains of palms being found in the coal for- 

 mations, without stating, that this circumstance has given rise to much discussion 

 on the probability of a great change of climate having taken place in these northern 

 countries. The discussion of so important a subject requires too much scientific 

 knowledge for me to undertake, but I may here briefly state, that the advocates of 

 the above theory assume that the remains of the palms occasionally found in cold 

 countries are not only tropical species, but that they grew in or near the localities in 

 which they have been discovered in a fossil state. On the other hand, their oppo- 

 nents say that these remains may have been drifted from the tropical countries, or 

 that they belonged to species now extinct, which were adapted to a temperate cli- 

 mate ; at present, I believe, that the climate of Sicily is the coldest in which any 

 palms have been grown in the open air. 



That palm leaves were, at a very early period, used as a material for manu- 

 scripts, is evident from a passage in Niebuhr's History of Rome, when he says, in 

 allusion to the sybilline oracles instituted by the last Tarquinius (B.C. 510) : " From 

 what little has been handed down, divulged, perhaps, after their destruction in the 

 time of Sylla, they appear to have been written on palm leaves. The method of 

 consulting was most probably by shuffling them, and drawing forth a leaf.'' As this 

 use of the palm leaf is intimately connected with the little curiosity which I present ; 

 I will proceed with a description of it, in the words of my correspondent, who thus 

 writes — " The little articles on the string are specimens of letters, which the natives 

 of this locality (near Tuticoreen, Presidency of Madras) are in the habit of sending 

 to one another ; they are formed of the leaf of the Palmyra palm, and are called 

 Ola or Olas by the natives. They are not intended to be sent through the post- 

 office, but are conveyed by hand from one neighbour to another. The address is 

 written on the outside, by means of a style. I would not advise you to open one of 

 them, as most probably you would not succeed in folding it again." 



Having been unable to procure a leaf of the Palmyra palm (Borassus fiabelli- 

 formis), I will endeavour to give a brief description of the plant, which is said to 

 be so called from Palmyra, the name of a celebrated city in the desert of Syria, 



