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IK. Report made to the Philofophical and Mathematical 

 ClaJ's of the French National Injlitute in the Sitting of Au- 

 gujl 1 8, entitled A Tour to Upper Egjpt above the Cata- 

 rafts of Sienne, with Obfervations on the different Kinds 

 of Senna ufcd in Commerce. By C. Desssssartz and 



V^NTENAT. 



V>( • NECTOUX, one of the fcientlfic men whom the go- 

 vernment had made choice of to form part of the commiffioa 

 of the fciences and arts which accompanied general Bona- 

 parte to Egypt, being appointed to obierve the agricultural 

 fvilem of the comitry, bv examining its plants as well as 

 other objefts of natural hiltory, embraced that opportunity 

 of acquiring fome more certain information in regard to the 

 fenna which Alexandria fupplies to all Europe, and particu- 

 larly to France. 



The magazines of Alexandria and Cairo were the firft 

 fources which he minutely infpefted. All the bales of fenna 

 were opened to him, and he found not only the two kinds 

 already known, but alio a third plant added to them, the 

 leaves of which have a great refemblance to thofe of the real 

 fenna. But fearing, and with reafon, that the inforntalion 

 he fliould thus obtain would be as imperfecl and incomplete 

 as that before publifhed, he refolved to examine the different 

 fpecies in the places where they are cultivated, and in the 

 ditfcrent Hates of growth, that the defcription he intended to 

 give might be as full and accurate as poffible. 



With this view he vidted and examined, with great care, 

 the environs of Alexandria, Rofetta, Damielta, and Cairo ; 

 but without fuccefs : he did not find a fingle piant of fenna 

 in the whole fpace inclofed in the Delta. Tlie fenna, there- 

 fore, is called the fenna of Alexandria merely bccaufe that 

 city is the general entrepot from which it is iranfported to 

 Europe ; and fenna de la palthe, becaufe fuch entrepots are 

 called palthe^ which fignifies a farm ; the managers are called 

 palthiers. 



By the information obtained from the different palthiers, 

 among whom he mentions, with gratitude, C. Rofetty, and 

 from the inhabitants of the country, he learned that fenna 

 plants were to be found in the valleys of Sienne. He there- 

 lore proceeded thither, and had the fatisfaftion of meeting; 

 with fome, and of collefting feveral loaded with flowers ancl 

 friit. Encouraged by this luccefs, nothing was able to re- 

 Itnin the ardour of his curiofity ; neither the violence of the 

 hta, nor the difTiculty of a long journey through parched 

 £ 4 and 



