494 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[January i, 1884^ 



The Centre da Lavoui-a e Commercio do not demand the 

 sincere co-operation of all those int^Tested in this great 

 cause, but neither will they contemn such aid. The 

 "Centre" marches straight to its goal, without caring 

 whether the road will be long or whether it will perform 

 its mission alone or in company with others ; all truly 

 noble and useful ideas ever find a lasting sui^port in them- 

 selves. We beheve we tax the spirit of oui age at its 

 true value, when we exjjress the opiuion, that wherever 

 the wonderful and creative power of so important a union 

 as that of the " Ceutro ' ' wiU make itself felt, that peace- 

 ful, but all conquering power, will ever gain sympathy and 

 overcome opposition. 



Edoardo Lemos, 

 Delegated Commissioner of the Brazilian section of the 

 International Exhibition at Amsterdam. 

 — India Md'cury. 



BoTAKv OF THE UppEit CoNGO. — The haudsome Hypha3ne 

 palms fu'st appear here, — not H. thebaica, but some species 

 akm to the Hyph<ene of the Zambesi. This palm has 

 orange-coloured fruit about the size of an apple, of which 

 the elephants are intensely fond. There is a climbing palm, 

 possibly a Calamus, very abundant in the Upper River. 

 This in common witli Hypha;ne, is never found growing 

 below Stanley Pool. On the lower river Hyph<ene is re- 

 placed by Borassus flabelliformis. The genus JXeuensia ex- 

 hibits an astonishing variety of species, many of them having 

 developed large tracts f generally white) around the blossoms. 

 These last range in colour from perfect crimson to pale 

 yellow and white. Amomum and Canna are weU represented 

 and also Hibiscus and the Malvaceae generally. The Mimo- 

 sace;e and Papilionace^ present species varying from tiny 

 herbs to giant forest trees. There are also many beauti- 

 ful lilies, orchids, and Commeiiue;e. and altogether the 

 flora of the Upper Congo can offer brilliant and almost unique 

 displays of flowers. — H. H. Johnston. — Field. 



Cultivation' of Cin'CEONAS in Bolivia. — If Mr. Sacc's 

 information can be depended on, the cultivation of good 

 forms of the fever plants has made more progress in 

 Bolivia than we at all imagined : "'Writing to the President 

 of the Aciidemy of Sciences, from Buenos Ayres (Co/»^(es 

 Riiuh'.s xcvii., 206), M. Sacc expresses his gratification at 

 the extent to which during the last ten years the cultiv- 

 ation of the best species of cinchona has been carried on 

 in Bolivia. In the mountains, he says, they are now sown 

 by thousands in nurseries and afterwards transplanted, 

 and he gives a list of seven viUages which possess nearly 

 four million ciuchona plants between them. The trees are 

 full gi-own in ten or twelve years and then yield 6 to 8 

 per cent of bark, the unscientific method of cutting them 

 down prior to the removal of the bark being at present 

 adopted. The Bolivian calisaya bark from this source is 

 said to 3"icld equal to 3 per cent of quinine sulphate." — 

 P}utrmaceutic(d Journal. [It is puzzling, however, to hear 

 of the yield of trees which come to maturity in twelve 

 years, while the cultivation is only ten years old. — Ed.] 



The New ^Vlkaloid, "Cinchonamink," is thus noticed 

 in the Fharmaceutical Journal: — Some further information 

 has appeared {Cmn2}t€s Sendtts, xcvii., 174) concerning the 

 new alkaloid, cinchonamine, isolated by M. Arnaud from a 

 "cuprea" bark {Phurm. Jov.ra.. [3], xii., 62t)j which he now. 

 states to have been derived from licwijia Furdiaiui. He 

 states that he has again obtained the alkaloid in a state 

 of purity from fresh samples of bark and that several of 

 its salts have been prepared. He finds that it combines 

 readily with acids, the salts formed being usually well 

 crystallized and only slightly soluble in water, especially 

 in the presence of an excess of acid : in hot alcohol they 

 dissolve freely and upon cooling of the solvent crystallize 

 out more readily than from an aqueous solutiou. The 

 hydi'ochl orate crystalHzes in two forms: from an acid litiuid 

 as an anhydrous salt, in very brilliant exceedingly thin 

 prismatic laniinje, very slightly soluble in acidulated water, 

 not efflorescing even at 100 ^ C; and these when rcdissolved 

 in hot pure water recrystallize upon cooling in thick flat 

 dull and ojiaque prisms, much more soluble than the original 

 crystals in both hot and cold water, effloresceut, and con- 

 taining a molecule of flf^tey of crystaUi2atiou. This property 



possessed by the anhydrous hydrochlorate of crystaUiziug 

 n acidulated water allows of the easy separation of cin- 

 chonamine from other alkaloids accompanyiug it in the 

 bark of R. Furdiana. The observation has been made by 

 Dr. Laborde that cinchonamine is exceedingly toxic, even 

 in very small doses. 



*' Pepper Dust." — Not long since, at the weekly 

 spice sales in Mincing Lane, COS bags (30 tons) of 

 black pepper dust were sold to a single firm of brokers 

 in two lots at 2d. and l|d. per lb. respectively, the 

 very worst ptpper in the market being \vorth 4|d. 

 per lb and this in the face of a protest from Messrs, 

 W. and D, Harvest. av1;o had procured an analysis 

 which showed the "dust" to be composed of sand 

 and clay 44*2 per cent, leaves, husk, etc., mouldy and 

 uusound 54*S per cent and whole grains of pepper 1 

 per cent. When the question of the sale was put to 

 the " room" only three hands were held up against 

 it, and Mr, Harvest was threatened with legftl pro- 

 ceedings tor bis disinteri'sted intei f'-rence. Where are 

 the sanitary authorities ? — Sanitary Record. 



EiTUSLEN, JuDAicoi, OR AspHALTE from the Dead Sea, 

 is one of the numerous substances that have been put for- 

 ward in France as a means of combating the phylloxera. 

 According to some information furnished to the French 

 XoSiiiGmy {Cohiptes Ftndi's, xc\'ii., 492), the Ai'ab \^Titer5, 

 in speaking of the use of this pitch as an insecticide, 

 distinguish thi-ee kinds : first, the kind thrown up by the 

 Dead »Sea from time to time, which is solid and appears 

 to be identical with the commercial substance; second, 

 that which is found on the surface of the soil in the 

 neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, which is also solid, and 

 that which is obtained in the same locality from below 

 the surface, which is liquid. A sample of the first kind 

 having been examined by M. Delachanal, he found it to 

 yield products of distillation analogous to those obtained 

 from petroleum, together with more than 3 per cent of 

 sulphur. As the substance upon incineration only gave 

 0'273 per cent of ash, the sulphur, or at any rate, the greater 

 part of it, could not have been present as metallic sulphate. 

 The presence of so much sulphur would appear to point 

 to a mineral origin for this bitumeu; and to separate it 

 from those which are entirely of organic origin. — Fhanw 

 aceutical Journal. 



The Joicrnal de Fhannacie et de Chhnie quotes a report 

 from the French Consul-General at Calcutta, recently 

 communicated by the Fi'ench Minister of Agriculture and 

 Commerce to the Comite Consultatif d'Hygieue de France, 

 in which the cinchona febrifuge prepared in India imder 

 Government auspices from the bark of Cinchona succi7^d}ra 

 is spoken of in not very favourable terms. It states that ■ 

 analysis has shown that quinine is present in the mixture 

 only in small proportion, about 12 to 13 per cent of the 

 whole, and expresses an opinion that in spite of the difference 

 in price of this product and that of quinine the latter 

 will continue to hold the exclusive confidence of medical 

 men. A further conti'ibution toexisting evidence as to the 

 unsatisfactorj' nature of the pharmaceutical preparations 

 of cinchona has been made by M. Tauret (L'duon Fhann., 

 xxiv., 352), who has examined for alkaloidal strength, 

 astringency and acidity a number of samples of soft extiucis 

 of ciuchona prepared by himself from diftereut kuids of 

 bark such as are uow met with in commerce, as well as 

 other samples from the principal manufacturers of phar- 

 maceutical productsin Paris. The cinchona tannin piinciple 

 was estimated in equivalents of tannin from nut-galls and 

 the acidity in terms of acetic acid. M. Tanret found that 

 some of the extracts, such as those prepared from Loxa 

 bark, contained but little alkaloid and much tannin; those 

 from Huanuco bark, on the contrary, contained five or six 

 times more alkaloid and only one-third as much tannin. 

 T^vo others, from '• grey" barks not more distinctly de6ned, 

 contained no more alkaloid than the Loxa bark prejiaratious 

 and ouly one-third as much tannin; whilst some pre- 

 parations from "Indian barks" appeared to contain little 

 tannin, but sometimes very notable quantities of alkaloids. 

 The conclusion to which Sl. Tanret arrives is that the 

 medical man cannot know exactly what he is ordermg 

 for his patient when he prescribes the soft extract of 

 cinchona. — Fhannaceutical Journals 



