Transactions. 151 



If, in one direction more than another, the ingenuity of 

 mankind has been exercised in seeking out many inventions, it is 

 in that of beverages, even more than in foods. Their name is 

 legion. Chemists tell us that we may make whisky out of an 

 old shirt, and, short of that, almost every vegetable substance 

 has been utilised in the manufacture of drink. The fermented 

 juice of the grape is the most ancient as well as, when containing 

 no more alcoliol than the natural product of fermentation, the 

 most wholesome and the safest of all. Other fruits — the apple, 

 pear, cherry, orange, ifec. — furnish .savoury and more or less 

 stimulating beverages. Leaving out of view tea, coffee, 

 cocoa, niat6, and other simple vegetable infusions, with 

 ginger ale and the other depressing beverages of its class, 

 we find the South American Indians making a highly 

 intoxicating drink from the juice of a species of aloe, the 

 East Indians an alcoholic liquor from the sap of the palm, and the 

 nations of Northern Europe another from that of the white 

 birch. Brandy is distilled from the grape, rum from 

 molasses, and mead, " the pure beverage of the bee," the nectar 

 of the heroes of the Valhalla, is brewed from honey. The South 

 Sea Islanders prepare ava or cava from the large rhizomes of 

 Macropipermethysticum, a species of pepper, in apeculiarly repulsive 

 way. The old women sit round a tub — the cava bowl — there is 

 one at Kew as big as a canoe, chewing the root and spitting it 

 into the tub. When enough has been masticated water is added, 

 and the mixture well stirred. It is then handed round to the 

 guests. The Kamschatdales intoxicate themselves with a very 

 poisonous fungus, a variety of Amanita muscaria, an infusion of 

 which in milk is used in this country for killing flies. The usual 

 way of taking it is to roll it up like a bolus and swallow it with- 

 out chewing. One large or two small fungi will, we are told, 

 produce a pleasant iutoxioation for a whole day, particularly if 

 water be taken after it, the desired effect coming from one to two 

 hours after swallowing the fungus. Steeped in the juice of 

 vaccinium uliginosum, also a British plant, its effects are like 

 those of strong wine. Wood betany, a rare plant in Scotland, 

 but found sparingly in this district, is, when chewed, slightly 

 intoxicating. It was formerly much used in medicine, but it is 

 discarded from modern practice. Notwith.standing this neglect, 

 it is. Withering .says, not destitute of virtues, among which he 

 instances that of being intoxicating when fresh. 



