294 Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh. 



mon Tree was read. The true cinnamon tree rises to the height 

 of thirty feet ; its roots yield camphor ; its leaves are seven or 

 eight inches lone: and two or three broad ; its flower is white, 

 and of a most disagreeable odour ; but its berries are greedily 

 devoured by the birds. What is called cassia is the receptacle 

 and unripe seeds of tlie laiirus cinnamormini . In Cevlon there 

 are four cinnamon plantations containing from 1 000 to 3000 

 acres each : three of them are represented as being well culti- 

 vated, and the fourth in a rather decayed and unproductive state. 

 The Chinese, it appears, were the great traders in cinnamon; 

 but, according to Ribiera, there is no account of their conmierce 

 in this article before the ninth century. Mr. M. thinks that the 

 terms cinnamon and cassia are of Malay origin, and that the tree 

 was originally cultivated for its bark by the Malayans. 



Mr. Knight communicated a supplement to his former paper 

 On the Binomial Theorem, in which he acknowledges that the 

 method he proposed is found in the work of the lateMr.Spence, 

 which he had not seen till very recently. 



C. Babbage, Esq. F.R.S. commimicKted an ingenious paper 

 on the use of 'analogy in mathematical reasoning; but the greater 

 part of it was of a nature unfit for public reading. 



April 24. A paper by Mr. Uppington, describing the nature 

 and advantages of an instrument which he calls an " electrical 

 increa-er," was communicated by Dr. Pearson, and read. It 

 consists of a series of brass plates which carry and retain the 

 electric fluid; but as their construction was exhibited by draw- 

 ings, it is impossible to convey a distinct idea of this apparatus. 

 The details of the experiments were originally communicated in 

 letters to the late Lord Stanhope. 



ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH. 



On the 13th of Januarv the annual election of office-bearers 

 took place, when Lord Glenlee was chosen one of the Vice-pre- 

 sidents in the room of the late Lord Meadowbank ; and Pro- 

 fessor Jameson, Colonel Emery, Dr. Macknight, and Professor 

 Dunbar, Counsellors, in the room of Walter Scott, Esq., Dr. 

 Jamieson, Dr. Brewster, and Mr.Brice, who went out by rotation. 



Since our last Report, the Rev. Mr. Allison read a second part 

 of his Biographical Account of the late Alexander Eraser Tytler, 

 Lord Woodhouselee, and his writings. 



A pa})er l)\ Mr. Thomas Lauder Dick, on the appearances 

 called the "Parallel Roads" in Glenroy, in the shire of Inverness. 

 This glen extends about eight or nine miles from NE. to SW. 

 and consists of six or seven distinct vistas or reaches, produced by 

 the projections and bendings of the hills. It is very narrow, and 

 the river Roy rvins along its battoin. On the sloping sides of 



. . the 



