204 On the Powson Tree of Java. (Marcu, 
investigation, and on the circumstances which have lately contri- 
buted to bring a faithful account of this subject before the public. 
At the time I was prosecuting my inquiries into the botany and 
natural history of the island on behalf of the Dutch government, 
Mr. Leschenault de la Tour, a French naturalist, was making a 
private collection of objects of natural history for the governor of 
the north-east coast of Java. He shortly preceded me in my visit 
to the eastern districts of the island, and while I was on my route 
trom Sourabaya in that direction, I received from him a communi- 
cation containing an account of the poison tree, as he found it in 
the province of Blambangan. I am induced to make this state- 
ment, in order to concede, as far as regards myself, to Mr. Lesche- 
nault de la Tour, in the fullest manner, the priority in observing 
the oopas of Java. I do this to prevent any reflection, in case a 
claim to the discovery should be made at a future period: but I 
must be permitted to add, in justice to the series of inquiries which 
engaged me, and the manner in which they were carried on, that 
the knowledge of the existence of this tree was by no means un- 
common or secret in the district of Blambangan, in the environs of 
Banyoo-wangee; that the commandant of the place, a man of 
some curiosity and inquiry, was acquainted with it, and that it 
could not (in all probability) have escaped the notice of a person, 
who made the vegetable productions an object of particular inquiry, 
and noted with minute attention every thing that related to their 
history and operation. 
It is in fact more surprising that a subject of so much notoriety 
in the district of Blambangan, and of so great celebrity and mis- 
representation in every other part of the world, should so long 
have remained unexplored, than that it should finally have been 
noticed and described ; and since my visit to that province I have 
more than once remarked the coincidence which led two persons of 
nations different from each other, and from that which has long 
been in possession of the island, who commenced their inquiries 
without any previous communication and with different objects in 
view, within the period of about six months, to visit and examine 
the oopas tree of Java. 
The work of Rumphius contains a long account of the oopas, 
under the denomination of arbor toxicaria; the tree does not grow 
on Amboina, and his description was made from the information 
he obtained from Macassar. 
His figure was drawn from a branch of that which was called the 
male tree, sent to him from the same place, and established the 
identity of the poison tree of Macassar and the other eastern islands 
with the antshar of Java. 
The account of this author is too extensive to be abridged in this 
place, it concentrates all that has till lately been published on this 
subject: but the relation is mixed with many assertions and remarks 
of a fabulous nature, and it is highly probable that it was consulted 
