462 INDIGENOUS SAGO AND TOBACCO FROM NEW GUINEA, 



The only allusion to the quantity of starch in sago, I can find, 

 is in Prof. Church's " Foods," in which he gives the percentage 

 for sago (presumably ordinary pearl sago) tapioca, arrow-root, 

 cornflour, and maizena at 83 (evidently an approximation, and only 

 intended as such). This result refei-s to sago at the ordinaxy 

 temperature of the air, and, taking 12 as the percentage of 

 hygrometric moisture, we find the percentage of starch in ordinaiy 

 sago to be 9 4* 3 2 (calculated on the substance dried at 100° C). 



Microscope. 



This sago as seen under the microscope presents a very similar 

 appearance to that depicted at fig. 116 of Hassall's " Food and its 

 Adulterations." The hilum is well marked, the rings though faint 

 are evident, the shape of the grains oval, oblong-oval, truncate- 

 oval, and a few sub-triangular. I cannot resist comparing the 

 shape and markings of some of the granules to fragments of 

 earthworms snipped off with a pair of scissors. 



TOBACCO. 



Obtained by Mr. Theodore Bevan the explorer, in April last, from 

 natives belonging to the village of Tumu, 50 miles north of Cape 

 Blackwood, Gulf of Papua, New Guinea. It is plentiful. 



It is wrapped in portion of a spathe of a sago palm, is sun- 

 cured, and was prepared for local use or tribal barter by natives 

 who, in all human probability, had never seen a white man. It 

 consists of the leaves and petioles but of no other portions of the 

 plant. 



I submitted the sample to Mi'. Hugh Dixson, one of our mem- 

 bers, than whom, I suppose, there is no higher authority on the 

 subject in New South Wales. He says: — " The specimen is 

 evidently, as you surmise, the same species as the tobacco of com- 

 merce ; if it has been at all crossed by an indigenous speciesit is to 

 an imperceptible extent. The variety is that grown in the Eastern 



