396 On various Plants used as Tea in different Countries. 



ruby-red, being red copper ; the others emerald-green, and 

 these were malacliite : and Demeste adds, that some of the 

 hollows also contained crystals of blue malachite or blue cop- 

 per. Vauquelin informs us, that on examining the fragment of 

 a statue which had been long buried, he found the exterior 

 of red copper, and the interior of copper in its metallic state. 

 It is evident that these changes in the copper, in the speci- 

 mens just enumerated, had been produced by the action of 

 the atmosphere and of percolating water. It is equally well 

 known that similar changes have been produced on copper 

 when fused under particular circumstances. Examples of this 

 kind were met with in masses of copper inclosed in the lava 

 which, in the year 1794', flowed over a considerable space of 

 the district of Torre del Greco. Common copper coins were 

 Converted into red copper, and in some specimens the surface 

 was crystallized. In some of the specimens of brass candlesticks 

 from Torre del Greco, preserved in the museum of the Univer- 

 sity of Edinburgh, the zinc was separated from the copper. 

 On some of them there are small brownish crystals of translu- 

 cent blende, numerous octahedrons of red copper, and very 

 beautiful copper-red cubes of pin-e copper. In other speci- 

 mens from Vesuvius mentioned by authors, the zinc and cop- 

 per have separated, and each appears crystallized in octahe- 

 drons ; and also in the state of iron-glance and sparry iron, 

 have been found in the lava of Vesuvius. Silver in beautiful 

 octahedrons, lead in the state of litharge, and galena, or lead- 

 glance, in the cubo-octahedral form, have also been collected 

 from the lava of Torre del Greco. — Vid. Schweigger's Journal. 

 — Edin. Phil. Journ. 



ON VARIOUS PLANTS USED AS TEA IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. 



The plants used as tea are as widely separated from each 

 other as the countries themselves are remote. In Mexico and 

 Guatimala the leaves of the Psoralea glandidosa are generally 

 used as tea; and in New Grenada the Alslonia theceformis of 

 Mutis (the Si/nqjlocos Alstonia of Humboldt and Bonpland) 

 affords a tea not inferior to that of China. Further to the 

 north on the same continent, a very wholesome tea is made 

 from the leaves of the Gaidtheria iprocumbens and Ledum lati- 

 foliim. This last is vulgarly called Labrador tea, and its use 

 was, I believe, first made known by the late Sir Joseph Banks. 

 The most famous of all American teas, however, is the tea of 

 Paraguay, of which large quantities are annually imported into 

 Peru, Chih, and the States of Buenos Ayres ; and the use of 

 it is so universal in South America, that the inhabitants have 

 always some of this tea ready prepared, whether engaged in 



occupations 



