218 Reviews^ and Notices respecting New Books, 



" The interest attached to the history of the Bohun UpaSy or Poison Tree 

 of Javu, renders it important here to guard the student from a misappre- 

 hension respecting the substance in which its poisonous activity resides, 

 which might arise from the manner in which the subject has been noticed 

 alike by Dr. Henry, Mr. Brandc, and Dr. 'I\uner, when treating of the 

 vegeto-alkalies, in their respective elementary works on chemistry. The 

 original source of error is the confusion which exists in the popular know- 

 ledge of the two Javanese poisons, or rather its deficiency with respect to 

 one of them. Upas simply means poison; and it is applied by the Javanese 

 to two vegetable poisons, the Upas antshar, or Bokun Upas, derived from 

 a tree, and the Ujias tshctiik, derived from a creeping shrub belonging to 

 the genus StrycJmos. But the word Ujjas in its popular reception in Europe 

 is always taken to mean the Bohun Upas, respecting which so many mar- 

 vellous relations have been promulgated; and hence, whenever that word is 

 used, even when denoting in reality the Tshettik, it is supposed to refer to 

 the first-mentioned poison. Pelletier and Caventou examined both these 

 poisons, the former under the name of Upas antliiar, the latter under that 

 of Upas tieute ; and as stated above, the activity of the former was found 

 by them to reside in a peculiar vegeto-alkali, and that of the latter in 

 5/ryc/^nifl itself. But Dr. Henry {Elements, vol. ii. p. 329) confounds the 

 Tshetlik with the Bohun Upas, when he states that strychnia appears, 

 * from the experiments of Pelletier and Caventou, to be separable, in a 

 remarkably pure state, from the poison of the Upas tree.' Mr. Brande 

 appears to do the same, when he remarks {Mamial, vol. ii. p. 539j that * the 

 })oison of the Upas tree ' and the woorara * affords a vegeto-alkaline base re- 

 sembling strychnia;' for he must really mean, agreeably to the explanation 

 just given, not the Upas tree, or Bohun Upas, but the Tshettik, or Upas 

 tieute ; while the statement is likely to mislead in other respects, for the 

 Tshettik affords strychnia itself, while the vegeto-alkali of the woorara is a 

 distinct substance, resembling strychnia in some respects, but differing from 

 it in others. Dr. Turner, by stating {Elements, p. 7 1 2) that Pelletier and Ca- 

 ventou have extracted strychnia ' from the Upas,' contributes to perpetuate 

 the error, — as this remark, though not incorrect in itself (^since the term 

 Upas is applicable to both poisons,) will be taken by most readers as allud- 

 ing to the Bohun Upas alone, which, as we have seen, does not contain 

 strychnia; while as the Tshettik is not popularly known as a kind of Upas, 

 it will be lost sight of altogether. In order to precbide errors of this kind, 

 it would be desirable, in elementary works on chemistry and natural history, 

 to confine the use of the term Upas to the Upas antshar, and always to 

 prefix to it the word Bohun (signifying ti^ee), which would denote it to refer 

 to the well-known poison, of which Bohun Upas has become in Europe the 

 popular name; and it would also be useful to notice particularly the exist-' 

 once of the more virulent Tshettik, which is at present scarcely known, ex- 

 cept to those persons who are conversant with the natural history of Java." 



The discussion of the Undulatory Theory of Light has often occu- 

 pied our pages, of which the present and many preceding Numbers 

 are examples : Mr. Brayley's sketch of the nature of light accord- 

 ing to this theory (Mr. Parkes having previously explained its nature 

 agreeably to the corpuscular hypothesis) is as follows : 



*' What other view has been taken of the nature of light besides that which 

 you have mentioned? 



'* From the earliest periods two different views of this subject have been 

 taken : one is that just stated ; in the other, which owes its present form 

 and perfection to the successive labours of Euler, the late Dr. Young, and the 

 late M. Fresnel, the sensation of light is regarded to be imparted to the eye 



