PULSE OR LEGUMINOUS SEEDS. 175 



cially their potash and phosphoric acid. Other saline com- 

 pounds, such as nitrates, also exist in these vegetable products ; 

 these are not without dietetic value. Taken as a group, 

 these fresh fruits and vegetables, while adding to the com- 

 bustible nutrients of the substantive articles of food, supply 

 the mineral matters in which the latter are often, as is particularly 

 the case with rice, notably deficient. They share also, with 

 flavouring substances, the useful office of imparting variety and 

 palatability to what would otherwise be a monotonous and insipid 

 diet. This is a function which the physiologist, rather than the 

 chemist, can more thoroughly appreciate. 



Since the foregoing pages were in type I have been enabled, 

 through the kindness of Mr. G. Watt, the Superintendent of the 

 Indian Economic Court in the Indian and Colonial Exhibition, to 

 secure a number of additional specimens for examination. Some 

 time must elapse before they can all be analysed, but amongst 

 them there are four examples of oleaginous seeds, of which I 

 am able to give at once the percentage composition. It should, 

 however, be premised that the quantities of oil set down amongst 

 the constituents may include, in one or two cases, a little resin 

 and colouring matter, and also that the albuminoids have been 

 calculated from the total nitrogen found by analysis, and so may be 

 somewhat exaggerated. Such specimens as required it were first 

 of all freed from their indigestible coverings, the cleaned kernel 

 being analysed in the state in which it is usually eaten or as 

 prepared for cooking. 



Shorea robusta (Gaertn.). 

 Hind. Sdl. 



This is a large timber-tree of considerable importance, belonging 

 to the Natural Order Dipterocarpeae. It occurs in the sub- 

 Himalayan tract from the Sutlej to Assam ; and in the eastern 

 districts of Central India, from the Ganges to the Godaveri, 

 extending westward to the longitude of Mandla. The fruit is 



