LIGNUM NEPHRITICUM SAFFOED. 289 



mounted in borax-glycerine (one part to ten) showed a greenish 

 A'eil of fluorescence due to diffusion, while sections from which the 

 fluorescent substance had been completely extracted with boiling 

 water had lost every vestige of fluorescence, though the resin-like 

 masses remained undissolved in the pitted tracheae. This substance 

 proved to be remarkably resistant. Dr. Mann had already found that 

 it would not break up in alcohol or xylol. Mr. Clevenger's experi- 

 ments showed further that it was also insoluble under ordinary tem- 

 peratures in chloral hj^drate, benzol, petroleum ether, chloroform, 

 50 per cent potassium hydrate, 10 per cent sulphuric acid, 10 per 

 cent hydrochloric acid, and carbon bisulphide. 



II. Philippine Lignum Nephriticum. 



Pterocarpus indicus. 



The early history of the Philippine lignum nephriticum is closely 

 associated with the Jesuits, who concerned themselves wherever 

 they went not only with their religious duties, but with scientific 

 investigation in many fields. The first written account of it (1701) 

 was that of the Rev. George Joseph Kamel, or Camellus, in honor 

 of whom the well-known genus CampUia was named. Although 

 from a botanical point of view his description was inadequate, yet 

 he established its identity beyond a doubt by giving its vernacular 

 names: nam-'a^ naga, and asana. The wood itself he describes as 

 " from brownish to reddish, turning water, in which it is soaked to 

 a sea-blue color," ^ and he calls attention to its medicinal virtues, 

 esi^ecially as a remedy for renal calculus. 



origin of gups. 



Another Jesuit, Father Delgado, speaks of the wood under the 

 same common names and tells of cups made of it in southern Luzon, 

 which he identifies with similar cups he had seen at Cadiz about 

 the year 1700, when he was a child ; and it was from the procurator 

 of the Society of Jesus in Mexico that the Jesuit Kircher received 

 the famous cup of lignum nephriticum, with which he performed 

 his experiments already cited " on a certain wonderful wood, color- 

 ing water all kinds of colors." 



Delgado tells of two kinds of naga, or narra, one rose colored, 

 which he calls the male wood, and the other, much paler in color or 

 white, which he calls female wood. He tells of trees of both the red 

 and white wood of enoraious dimensions, yielding boards of such 



1 " Lignum ex subfusco rufescens, aqiiam in qua maceratur colore, inflciens cymatili." — 

 Camellus, G. J. Descr. Fruct. & Arb. Luzonis ad Jac. Petiverium, Pharmac. Londinens. 

 missae, anno 1701, in Raiius, Joan., Hist. Plant., vol. 3, append, p. 79. 1704. 



18618°— SM 191.5 19 



