and the Areca-vut Tree. 331 



est esteem, on account of his character and talents, will 

 torsive me tor this criticism. As a friend of truth I have, 

 traversed all the provinces of that immense and industrious 

 country, in which I made a number of observations on it* 

 arts, sciences, and productions : I learned seven of its dia- 

 lects, that I might be better able to make myself acquaint- 

 ed with the jTianners, the religion, and civilization of the 

 inhabitants; and I have been employed for more than 

 twenty-five years on a w ork which will give an exact ac- 

 count of every thing in it that can excite curiosity, or pre- 

 sent to the philo;Sopher subject for meditation. 



All the authors \\ ho have written on this vegetable have 

 fsaidj that when the calou is concentrated by ebullition, after 

 tlve vessels in which it is received when it issues i'rom the. 

 bud have been covered in the inside w'ith a little lime, it 

 crvstiillizes bv desiccation in t!>c sun into coarse sugar; but 

 none of tliein have mentioned the use made of it in the 

 arts : thi,- deticiency I shall he-.e supply. Lime, which 

 dissolves all vegetable substances, and liquefies their juice, 

 consolidate s the one in question to such a degree, that it is 

 much inspissated before it is boiled ; by the process of 

 clarilication, it i* freed fiom the small quantity of lime, 

 after which this sugar is employed for different domestic 

 purposes ; I have even converted it into coarse sugar candy. 

 It is of creat advantage in the art of masonry: works con- 

 structed with cement or mortar, moistened with water, nv 

 about a l.undred quarts of which from fifteen to twenty 

 pounds of this sugar have been diluted, acquire such so- 

 lidity and tenacity^after complete desiccation, that the bricks. 

 or stones cannot be disunited even by the greatest efforts. I 

 jncnlion this fact on the authority of experience; the best and 

 strouLa-st tools in performing this labour arc broken. To provc 

 jny ;issertion, 1 shall mentitm the experiments I made in the 

 year 1 769, when the fortifications of Pondicherry were re- 

 paired. The chief engineer being desirous through oeco-j 

 nomv tc^ employ part of the old walls, gave orders that they 

 should be cut into blocks, to serve as a foundation for the 

 jiert ones: this labour occasioned more expense than it 

 new materials had been purchased, in consequence of the 

 loss of time, and the number of tools that were brokeii 

 during the operation : as a last proof of this assertion, I 

 shall mention that I have seen the halves of largo arches re- 

 maining suspended, though the other half had been de-. 

 stroycd by the effects of mines employed at the tinic when 

 r<!n(lieherry was destroyed, in the year 1/61. Immense 

 liirrmcnts of these arches arc still to be seen in the houhc 

 4 of 



