ESPARTO 305 



called Cordyceps purpurea. In this state the rye is highly poisonous. The ergot of 

 rye has been employed in medicine. 



ERINITE. A hydrous arsenate of copper. 



ERMINE. The Ermine, Mustela Erminea, is one of the weasel tribe. This little 

 animal is most destructive, destroying a considerable quantity of game. It is upwards 

 of 9 inches long, exclusive of the tail which measures 3 inches more. In the winter 

 the fur becomes quite white, except the tip of the tail which always remains black. 

 In the summer it is of a fine chestnut colour, and the fur is then known by the furriers 

 as Koselet. It is a native of northern countries. It is especially abundant in Kussia, 

 Siberia, Kamtschatka, Lapland, and Norway. It is found occasionally in Scotland. 

 See FUR. 



ERRATIC BLOCKS. Bounded and weather-worn fragments of the harder 

 rocks, which are found very widely scattered, at great distances from the places 

 whence they were originally derived. They are generally supposed to have been 

 removed by the transporting power of icebergs and fields of ice. 



ERUBESCITE. A name for purple copper-ore, or ' horse-flesh ore.' See 

 COPPER. 



ERYTHRIC ACID. The colorific principle of Angola and Madagascar 

 Orchilla weeds. By macerating the lichen in milk of lime, Stenhouse obtained 12 

 per cent, of crude erythric acid. It yields red compounds with ammonia, and also in 

 its reaction with hypochlorite of lime. See LICHEN ; ORCHILLA. 



ERYTHRIUTE or ERYTHRITE. A hydrous arsenate of copper, known also 

 as cobalt-bloom. See COBALT. 



ERYTHROXYXiORT COCA. The coca. This shrub is a native of Peru, and is 

 cultivated extensively in the Andes. The dried leaves, mixed with finely-powdered 

 chalk, are chewed by the Peruvians. This peculiar stimulant brings on a condition of 

 apathy. It prevents hunger and retards sleep, so that the natives who work in the 

 mines will sometimes, under its influence, labour from twenty to thirty hours at a 

 stretch. The continued use of coca is more injurious than that of opium or tobacco. 

 See COCA. 



ESCARPMENT. A word which has long been in use in geological works ; and 

 by the earlier writers it was employed to denote any hill that had a sharp slope or 

 scarp, but of late years it has acquired a more restricted meaning, and it is now 

 applied only to hills of one particular kind. ' It may be defined,' says Mr. "Whitaker 

 ' as the boundary ridge of a formation or bed, that is to say, the ridge along which a 

 formation or bed is cut off, and beyond which it does not extend, except in the form 

 of outliers ; it follows the line of the strike.' Geology of the London Basin. 



ESCHALOT (Echalote, Fr.), commonly SHALLOT. A small kind of onion. 

 Allium ascalonicum. , 



ESCUIiIN. A substance found in the inner white bark of the horse-chestnut tree, 

 remarkable for its fluorescent power. See FLUORESCENCE. 



ESPARTO, or Spanish Grass, as its name denotes, is imported from Spain, 

 where it is indigenous in certain mountains and uncultivated districts on the 

 Mediterranean coast. It is also produced on the north coast of Africa, where it is 

 called by the Arabs alfe, alfa, or alva. It appears to have been used by the Romans 

 for cordage, and called by them Spartium. 



This plant, classed as a sedge by botanists (and by them denominated Lygeum 

 Spartum and Stipa tenacissima), grows in tufts and bunches similar to the rushes 

 in this country ; it varies from 2 to 4 feet in height, and consists of a long flat 

 lanceolated leaf or blade, which, as the sap descends and the plant ripens, takes a 

 cylindrical form. It is pulled up from the roots, exposed to the sun, and, when dry, 

 laid in small bundles, and these again, for facility of carriage, into larger ones, which 

 are transported in carts, or more generally on donkeys' backs (both Spain and Africa, 

 in the uncultivated and wild districts of the country where the plant exists, being, 

 comparatively speaking, without roads) to the port of shipment. 



The plant being now imported to the extent of 30,000 to 40,000 tons yearly, was 

 selling at the commencement of the year 1862 at 51. per ton ; but owing to the 

 reduction in the price of rags, and to the general stagnation of trade caused by the 

 American war, this price has been latterly reduced. 



Numerous patents have (as might naturally be expected) been taken out for the 

 treatment of this plant ; those by Mr. Eoutledge would appear, from the increasing 

 employment of this material, to be the most useful, effectual, and economical. Mr. 

 Routledge represents, indeed, that the cost of production either in the condition of 

 half stuff or paper, is below that of rags to produce a similar quality of paper, and the 

 power required for reducing much less. Judging from the specimens of paper ex- 

 hibited by Mr. Eoutledge in 1862, manufactured by him a,t his mills at Eynsham, in 

 Oxfordshire, exclusively from esparto, as well as from the other specimens of paper 

 VOL. II. X 



