UN. I 1B87.I tHE TROPICAL AQmCVttmmfc _ 50i 



IT'^-'-T-"- ""^ " 



In thi^ connection we may attract attention to the 

 information on our back page in relcrcueo to the 

 Lanka Company's plantations, and we may add that 

 no greater treat met our eyes durmg a recent visit 

 to some of the north Kandy districts than the sight 

 of some 300 acres of vigorous young (three years old) 

 coffee in blossom on Pallekella, Doombara. Long 



may it flourish and hear the bean which is likely to 

 become more precious, than ever before m its history 



for the past forty or fifty years. 



Cinchona in Java and Cevlon.— We had an 

 interesting visit today from Mr. Dinger of Batayia, 

 th3 very intelligent proprietor of extensive cultiva- 

 tion in Java and a gentleman thoroughly interested 

 in social and political as well as planting progress. 

 He has presented us with a copy of tlie pamphlet 

 written by Mr. Mundt (" Ceylon and Java") mainly 

 made up from our " Handbook and Directory 

 (but without acknowledgment !) in which Ceylon is 

 held up as a model to the Dutch Government in 

 respect of its planting enterprise. Mr. Dinger has 

 one cinchona plantation in East Java of about ;?yO 

 acres with trees tl by 6 feet or 2,000 to the acre 

 from 7 years old downwards. He has experimented 

 in harvesting by all plans, shaving, coppicing, up- 

 rooting, having no diOiculty in getting fresh trees to 

 grow over old ground. Mr. Dinger is evidently of 

 opinion that a large— very large deduction 

 —should be made from Mr. Mundt's calcu- 

 lation as to the area planted with cinchona alto- 

 gether in Java, although he agrees that the ex- 

 port thence is bound largely to increase. We 

 have told him that present appearances point to 

 Ceylon sending a3 much bark as last season. Mr. 

 Dinger being interested in laws and legislation, is 

 to send us a complete copy of the Java-Dutch 

 Code, more especially with reference to the admir- 

 able Law of Mortgages prevailing in Java. We shall 

 have the same looked into, on receipt. 



Petkolkum .\.s a Fuel is thus noticed in the 

 Home Letter of the Indian Euijinter : — The other 

 day, a number of gentlemen visited the works of 

 Messrs. Priestman Brothers, Holderness Foundry, 

 Hull, to attend the trial of a patent engine, the 

 motive power of which is obtained from the use 

 of common petroleum. These engines are made under 

 Messrs. Eteve and Hume's patents, ani are ex- 

 tremely simple in their internal arrangements. 

 The petroleum is stored in a small tank contain- 

 ing one to two days' supply, as the case may be. 

 A small pressure of air is put into this tank, and 

 the petroleum is forced out of it into a vessel in 

 a vaporized condition, in which it is then drawn 

 into the cylinder by the outstroke of the piston, 

 and having been compressed on the instroke the 

 charge is ignited by means of a small electric 

 spark. This inmiediately explodes the contents in 

 the cylinder, and the 'piston is driven forward. 

 The engine, in which the highly retined petroleum 

 JB U3ed, is very similar to thrit in which the com- 

 mon petroleum is employed, the only ditference 

 being that in the latter engine the oil is taken into 

 the cylinder in a heated condition. Tlie cost of 

 the oil 19 estimated at a half'penny to three 

 farthings per indicated horse power per hour. Four 

 horizontal engines were at work, two with ben^o- 

 line and two with common petroleum. One of 

 about three and-a-half indicated hone-power, sup- 

 plied with benzoline, was driving easily four blasts 

 at which chain -makers were at work, besides a 

 a punching and a shearing machine. A vertical 

 engine of about four-horse power was driving a 

 namcar and doing work with ease. The tests were 

 etrcsidered ojost gatisfactorj'. 



OOCA LhAVes show no itnproVement whatever. Four 

 bales, mostly bt-a-dau.agcd, huanoco leaves .sold at 8d 

 to S^d. per lb. FroQi Hamburg the article is reported 

 decidedly firmer, the stock at that port having within 

 the last foruight been diminished by 16,000 kilos, 

 partly for German and partly for American consump- 

 tiuu. — Chemitt and BrutjyMt. 



Cinchona Bari:.— A correspondent writes :— Some 

 fifteen years ago ixperimeuts were made to grow 

 ciuchona at Singapore, but the young plants would 

 not flourish, and the attempt was abandoned. In 

 some of the protected States, for instance Perak, 

 cinchona is grOwn, but whether it will become % 

 profitable product is doubtful. Some of the planters 

 wuo have ground from the Sultan of .Johore have 

 also planted ciuchona. Of these places, Perak, which 

 is a protected State in the Malay Peninsula, is as 

 yet the only one which can have trees fit for barking. 

 The Hon. Sir Hugh Low has done much in promoting 

 cinchona cultivation in Peank. — C/nmi.H and Dniygist. 

 BOTANKAi. ExPLORATioN.s IN CosTA KiCA.— The dis- 

 trict of Chirigui in Costa JKica, whence the bulk of 

 the so-called Jamaica sarsaparilla come;', was lately 

 explored by an Engli.sh botauLst, who gives an interest- 

 iug account of his journey in The Gardeners Chronicle. 

 Among other things be mentions finding an anonaceous 

 plant, probably a Hylepia exhaling a perfume very 

 like that of Canauga odorata (ylang-ylang), and a 

 tree kuowu as the "samba gum tree," which yields 

 on incision a creamy-looking yellowish sap, which 

 »fter a time become.s hard and resinous and then 

 resembles the tenacious hog gum of Jamaica, the 

 produce of Si/mphonia 'jlobiilifera . He also met with 

 a thin-coated coconut one-third larger than the 

 ordinary kind, and which he thinks deserving of 

 cultivation. The natives ornament their cheeks with 

 paint made among other things from an oleoresin 

 resembling elemi, yielded by a tree called " pontapee." 

 This paint is prepared by burning the oleoresin and 

 collecting the lamp-black, a purpose for which it is 

 doubtless well adapted. — Chemist and Druqyist. 



The Linnean Society, Dec. 2Nn.— Ceylon Plants. 

 —As a chapter in the history of East Lidian botany, 

 Dr. Henry Triinen gave a paper at the Linnean Society 

 meeting, on the above date, " Hermann's Ceylon Her- 

 barium and Liunasus' Flora Zei/lanica." The col- 

 lection of dried plants and the "drawings of living 

 ones made in Ceylon by i'aul Hermann in the later 

 half of the seventeenth century possess a special in- 

 terest as being the first important instalment of 

 material towards a knowledge of the botany of tha 

 East Indies ; but Hermann himself, who died in 1695 

 published very little of this material. Some of his 

 MSS. were subsequently printed by W. Sherard 

 including a catalogue of the herbarium as then exist- 

 ing, under the title of Maaaiin Zri/laniciim (1717). 

 This herbarium was lost sight of till 1744 when it 

 was recognised by Linnteus in a collection sent to him 

 from Copenhagen. After two years work at it, Lin- 

 nwus produced in 1747 his Flora Zci/lanica, in which 

 all the plants that he could determine are arranged 

 under his genera. At that date Linnaeus had not 

 initiated his binomial system of nomenclature, but 

 in his subsequent systematic works he quoted the 

 members of the Flora Zcylainca and thus Her- 

 mann's specimens became the types of a number of 

 Linnseus' species, for the most part additional to 

 thofte in his own herbarium now in the pos- 

 segsion of the Linnean bociety. Hermann's 

 herbarium is now in the botanical department of 

 the J^ritidh Museum, having been purchased by Sir 

 Joseph Banks from Prof. Treschow, of Copenhagen 

 the apecimeue are in very fine preservation, but soma 

 were origininally scanty or imperfect. The paper con- 

 sists of the results of a critical examination of the 

 whole of the collection, and a catalogue is given of 

 ail the Flora Zii/lanica species as named by Linnrous, 

 along with the determinations of Hermann's speciea 

 of each as now identified. Not a few difficulties, 

 ambiguities, and misapprehensions of Linntsus' spe- 

 cies have been thus recovered and cleared up, and' 

 the most important of these are discussed in a aeries 

 of short, critical notes which form the conclusion of 

 the paper.— 6ra/-£^c/(«r«' Chronicle, 



