LIGNUM NEPHRITICUM SAFFOKD. 289 



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

 veil 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 hydrate, benzol, petroleum ether, chloroform, 

 60 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 wdth the Jesuits, who concerned themselves wherever 

 they w^ent 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 Camellia was named. Although 

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

 he established its identity beyond a doubt by giving its A^emacular 

 names: narra^ 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, 

 especially as a remedy for renal calculus. 



origin or CUPS. 



iVnother 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 w^onderful w^ood, 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 

 W'hite, which he calls female w^ood. He tells of trees of both the red 

 and white wood of enormous dimensions, yielding boards of such 



1 " Lignum ex subfiisco rufescens, aquam In qua maceratur colore, inficiens cymatili." — 

 Camellus, G. J. Descr. Fruct. & Arb. Luzonis ad Jac. Petiverium, I'harmac. Londinens. 

 missae, anno 1701, in Raiius, Joan., Hist. Plant., vol. 3, append, p. 70. 1704. 



18618°— SM 1915 19 



