March i, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



763 



-^ 



To the Editor of the Ceylon Observer. 



Ihon-wood. — We have extracted the following from 

 the Timber Trades Jonrnal, aud hope that some of <'Ur 

 readers may be able to give the necessary iiiformati"n: — 

 East India Ironwood. Sir,— Can you give me 

 any information as to where I can purchase any 

 Ironwood (from India)?— Yours truly, Subscriber. 

 [We do not know of any wood in the Knglish 

 market known by the name of ironwood imported 

 from India, nor can we bear of any one who has 

 ever seen any in the docks. It is, however, described 

 in Laslett's " Timber and Timber Trees, " hnd Rojle's 

 " Descriptive Catalogue of woods," and other standard 

 works, and is therefore a wood the qualities of which 

 appear to be well known. We are inclined to think 

 that it can only be met with in this country in 

 specimen or example pieces. If any subscriber has 

 a parcel of this wood for sale, we shall be happy to 

 put him in communication with our correspondent, 

 who wishes to buy. — Ed. T.T.J. [Query trees known 

 in Ceylon as Na (the iromi'ood tree), Pala, &c.? — Ed.] 



THE IRON-WOOD OF CEYLON. 



Colombo, 12th Febraary 1883. 



De.ik Sib, — With reference to the extract in yom- 

 paper of Friday last, headed " Iron Wood," I need 

 hardly remind you that what we commonly call iron- 

 wood — the " Paloo" or Pala of the Tamil and the " Na" 

 of the Sinhalese- abounds iu the Government forests of 

 the Northern, North-Western, North Central, and Eastern 

 Provinces of the island. The 10,000 acres of laud in 

 Kanthalai near Ti-iucomalee, assigned by Government 

 in 1878 to the ill-starred Jaffna and Batticaloa Com- 

 pany, was BO full of this description of timber that the 

 then manager of the Company cut 20.731 cubic feet 

 of It — out of (300 acres) —which (at 50c per cubic foot) 

 Bold in Triucomalee realized R' 0,365 '50. Each of these 

 logs would have made from two to fom- railway sleep- 

 ers and would have been impervious to white ants. 



This wood was so heavy that it took a cart for each 

 log, and with a haulage of 25 miles to the sea coast 

 still realized cent per cent on the cost. I think I am 

 justified m stating that the supply at Triucomalee and 

 Batticaloa is almost unh'mited. 



All the timber sold from Kanthalai was taken to the 

 oast of India by native craft. — Yours truly, W. H. 



Colombo, Uth Feb. 1883, 



Sir,- On the extract on this subject in your issue 

 of the 8tU instant and given also in No. 1 for 1883 

 of the Indian Forester p. 47, 1 put some marginal 

 notes intending to send you a note on the subject, ad- 

 vising you lo extract what I said about three of 

 our Ceylon iron-woods in your list of Ceylon tim- 

 ber trees in your Directory for 1863, pp. 228, 236, 

 and 238, and to copy the article on iron-woods from Bul- 

 four's Timber Trees uf India &c., but I see that iu 

 yesterday's issue, "W. H." has written to you on the 1 

 iron-wood of Ceylon. No more accomplished writer ! 

 nor better Tamil or Sinhalese speaker than "W. H." 

 exists in Ceylon, and the information he has given 

 about the qnantitj of patu timber sent from Kan- 

 thalai to Triucomalee, and the prices realized for 

 the same, with the cost of transport, are moet valu- 

 able and useful, and Mr. Vincent of the Indiau 

 Forest Department, now in Ce>lon, will no doubt take 

 a note of these facts, and of the almndance of this 

 tree in certain provinces of the island, with the 

 unlimited eupply at Trincomalee aud Batticaloa ; but i 



like the maj')rity of writers who get hold of popular 

 native or Knglish names of plants he has mixed up 

 yate Sinhalese, piih' Tamil, and naya Sin., and iron- 

 woods. The palu or palu-gaha of the Sinhalese is 

 the Mimusops hexnndra Kox., and its Tamil mime, 

 nell-known to me in Jaffna in 1843 7, and also in 

 Rottlor's Dictionary pt. 2 p. 344, is jiali. but whether 

 the one is borrowea and modified from the other I 

 do not know. I think the Tamils have adopted our 

 Sinhalese name, as our tree is one of the most abund- 

 ant and best known of our timber trees in Ceylon, 

 and has been sent to India from here The palu. 

 has been called iron-wood, but erroneously so. Na 

 or na-gaha, is the Mesua ferrea Linn., aud was col- 

 lected under this Sinhalese name by Hermann in 

 Ceylon in 1670-7, and is the iron-wood par excel- 

 lence of Ceylon, and "W. H." ought to know 

 that this iron-wood tree with its glorious brilliant 

 crimson y^oung leaves, and its large fragrant white 

 flowers, with yellow masses cf stamens in the centre, 

 80 universally grown near Buddhist temples in Cey- 

 lon, cannot and ought not to be confounded with 

 the palu, with its dense spreading head, leaves crowded 

 near the ends of the branches, and abundant but 

 small dowers among them. In a list of woods sent 

 by Mr. A. Clark, Forester of the Nortliern Province, 

 and intended for the Melbourne Exhibition, I found 

 " naki" and '■ »miya-ma»-aw " given as the Tamil names 

 of this latter tree, but these are evidently modified 

 terms of the Sinhalese name of the tree, ,as I have 

 not elsewhere seen or heard of a Tamil name for 

 Mesua ferrea. 1 trust these facts will suffice to 

 prevent confusion between pnlic and na. Mr. Clarke 

 spells the Tamil name of the former palai. 



In a list of Timber Trees in Ceylon, by a Mr. Edye, 

 who was in charge of the Naval Dockyard at Triuco- 

 malee in 18 — , published in the 2nd volume of the 

 Journul of the Royal Asiatic Society, pp. 370-7, he 

 wrote thus of the Mimusops, showii g that he thought 

 it was then called the iron-wood in England: — "Pali 

 iu Tamil, Irambu in Malabar, Palari in Portuguese ; 

 the wood known in England by the name of Ironwood." 

 At another place he has:— '■ Vela salu, the Tamil name 

 of the White ironwood, which grows to about 14 inches 

 in diameter, and ten feet high," etc. 



Perhaps, the publication of the following extracts 

 affecting the plants which produce the woods known 

 popularly as Ironwood might be useful to some of 

 the enquirers after these woods : — 



Mesua feriea, Linn.; Mitniisops hexandra, Rox. ; 

 Maba buxifolia, Pers. ; in your Directory for 1863, 

 pp. 228, -o^i and 238 (see also what I say of Na-gaha 

 No. 59 and Palu No. 65 in my notes on Mendis's list), 

 aud the article from Balfour's Timber Trees and Fancy 

 Woods of India &c. , pp. 140-1. — Yours &c. , 



W. FERGUSON. 



A LOCAL MANUFACTORY OF QUIMNE OR OF 

 THE OTHER CINCHONA ALKALOID.S. 



February 10th, 1883. 

 Dear Sir, — There has been much dL-scussion among 

 cinchona planters as to the possibility of establishing 

 a Quiuine Factory in Ceylon. 



On p.ige 623 'Tropical Aijriculturist, Feb., I find the 

 following fitjurea in reference to the manufacture of 

 Indian Government barks : — 



1. Quinine Sulph 1,467 lb. 



2. Cinchonidine Sulph 345 ,, 



3. Quinidine ... 40 „ 



4. Cinchonine Sulph 208 ,, 



5. Febrifuges 2,336 „ 



Total 4,.396 „ 



The '• mauutacturiug charges" for the above are eU' 

 tered as "£2,604 11." 



