48 Dr. Hancock on the 



its wood is aromatic, compact ia its texture, and of a brownish 

 colour, and its roots abound with essential oil. 



This tree, which is found in the vast forests that cover the flat 

 and fertile regions between the Oroonoko and the Parime, has from 

 an analogy already alluded to, been supposed to belong to the na- 

 tural order, Laurinece : and though Humboldt and Bonpland do not 

 seem to have been acquainted with its singular and important pro- 

 duce, its botanical characters may very possibly have been 

 described in their Plantes Equinoxiales, under the Genera Oeotea, 

 Pereea, or Litsea. This question I am, however, unable to solve, 

 as I have never seen the parts of fructification. 



The Native Oil of Laurel is procured by striking with an axe the 

 proper vessel, in the internal layers of the bark, while a calabash 

 is held to receive the fluid. So obscure, however, are the indica- 

 tions of these reservoirs, that the Indians (with perhaps a little of 

 their usual exaggeration) assert, that a person unacquainted with 

 the art may hew down a hundred trees, without collecting a drop 

 of the precious fluid. In many of its properties, the Native Oil 

 resembles the essential oil obtained by distillation and other arti- 

 ficial processes ; it is, however, more volatile, and highly rectified, 

 than any of them ; its specific gravity hardly exceeding that of 

 alcohol. When pure, it is colourless and transparent : its taste is 

 warm and pungent ; its odour aromatic, and closely allied to that 

 of the oily and resinous juice of the Coniferce*. \t is volatile, and 

 evaporates without residuum, at the atmospheric temperature t. 

 It is inflammable, burning entirely away, and except when mixed 

 with alcohol, gives out in its combustion a dense smoke. Neither 

 the alkalies nor acids seem to exert any sensible action upon the 

 Native Oil. Upon dropping into it sulphuric acid, the latter as- 

 sumes a momentary brownish tinge, but soon regains its transpa- 

 rency, remaining immiscible at the bottom of the vessel. The Oil of 

 Laurel dissolves camphor, caoutchouc, wax, and resins ; and 

 readily combines with the volatile and fixed oils. It is insoluble 



* So striking is this resemblance, that a friend, to whose inspection I sub- 

 mitted the Oil, pronounced it, rather hastily, to be Spirits of Turpentine. 

 t 750—83° Fah. 



