1089 



CINNAMOMUM. 



CINNYRID^E. 



1090 



tions. The differences in Cassia-Bark are of such a nature as to render 

 the last the most probable conjecture ; it possesses less aromatic oil, 

 a circumstance likely to occur to trees in unfavourable situations ; 

 and in proportion as the oil disappears there is an increase in mucila- 

 ginous and resinous matter. But on the other hand there are so many 

 inert or comparatively inert species of Cinnamomum, that Cassia may 

 very well belong to one of them. There is 0. dulce in China, obtusi- 

 folium, iners, Bazania, and others, any of which may possibly yield 

 such a bark. The question is however one more of curiosity than real 

 consequence. The only important thing about Cassia was the suppos- 

 ing it to be furnished by what is really a most valuable species, and 

 that error is now removed. 



Cinnamon of the genuine Ceylon kind is cultivated in Guyana, the 

 island of St. Vincent, the Cape de Verd, Brazil, the Isle of France, 

 Pondicherry, Guadaloupe, and elsewhere, and it is said that plants 

 obtained from Paris by the Pasha of Egypt have thriven when trans- 

 ported to Cairo. There is however no probability that the tree will 

 succeed as an article of commerce in any country that has not the hot 

 damp insular climate and bright light of Ceylon. 



C. Tamala is a native of the continent of India, wild in Derwanee 

 and Gongachora, cultivated in the gardens of Rungpoor. The taste 

 of the leaves when dried is aromatic ; they are sold in the shops 

 under the name of Folia Malabathri Tamalapathri or Indi. 



C. Loureirii grows on the lofty mountains of Cochin China, to the 

 west towards Laos, Japan. The flowers of Cassia are produced by 

 this species. The old and young branches are worthless, but the 

 middle-sized shoots are superior to that of Ceylon, and are sold at a 

 much higher price. 



C. Culilawan is a native of Amboyna, especially in Leitimoo near 

 the villages of Saya, Button, and Ema. The bark when dry is aro- 

 matic like cloves, but less pungent and sweeter. It has some 

 astringeney, and owes its medicinal activity to a combination of volatile 

 oil, resin, and bitter extractive. It is useful in dyspeptic complaints, 

 diarrhoeas, &c. The natives of Amboyna use it both as an internal 

 medicine and as a stimulating linament. 



C. rubrum grows in Cochin China, and contains an essential oil, like 

 the last species, smelling of cloves, but not so agreeable. 



C. Sintoc grows on the Nilgherry Mountains in Hindustan, and the 

 higher mountains of Java. It is a tree 80 feet high. The bark is in 

 quality very like the true Culilawan, but not so agreeable ; it is more 

 bitter and drier, and more powdery when chewed. 



C. xanlhoneuron is a tree growing on the Papuan Islands and the 

 Moluccas. The bark has great fragrance when fresh, but loses this 

 quality in time. It is so extremely like Mapoy Bark as to be con- 

 founded with it. 



C. niiidum is a shrub or small tree growing on the continent of 

 India. It is the plant which furnished the principal part of the ' Folia 

 Malabathri ' of the old pharmacologists. 



C. Javanicum is a tree with a trunk 20 feet to 30 feet high, growing 

 in Java and Borneo. The bark is of a deep cinnamon-brown colour, 

 more bitter than Culilawan Bark, and the leaves when rubbed have a 

 very sharp aromatic odour. Blume says the bark deserves the attention 

 of medical men on account of its powerful anti-spasmodic properties. 



With regard to Cinnamon and Cassia Barks as they occur in com- 

 merce, we are most indebted to Nees von Esenbeck, who has paid 

 great attention to the subject. According to him, the finest or Ceylon 

 Cinnamon is procured from the three-year-old branches of the 

 Cinnamomum Zeylanicum (Blume), which is found native in the 

 island of Ceylon only ; the cultivation however has been extended to 

 Java and to South America. Though found in various parts of the 

 island, it is most abundant in the south-west part, near Colombo, and 

 yields the best Cinnamon when growing in a sandy quartz soil. The 

 time for stripping off the bark is from May to October. The bark, 

 after being removed from the branches, is tied up in bundles for 

 twenty-four hours, during which time a sort of fermentation takes 

 place, which greatly facilitates the separation of the outer part of the 

 bark from the cuticle and epidermis, which is very carefully scraped 

 off the Ceylon Cinnamon. It is then rolled up into quills, or pipes, 

 about three feet in length ; the thinner or smaller quills being sur- 

 rounded by larger ones a mark which always distinguishes Cinnamon 

 from Cassia. It is then conveyed to Colombo, where it is sorted by 

 government inspectors into three kinds, of which the two finest alone 

 were allowed to be exported to Europe, while the third, or inferior 

 kind, was reserved to be distilled along with the broken pieces of the 

 other two for the purpose of obtaining the oil of cinnamon. The 

 select Cinnamon is formed into bales of about 92 Jibs, weight, con- 

 taining some pepper or coffee, and wrapped in double cloths made of 

 hemp, and not, as stated by some writers, of the cocoa-tree. 



This fine Cinnamon occurs in pieces about forty inches in length, 

 generally containing from six to eight rolls or quills in each, one 

 within the other, of the thickness of vellum paper, of a dull golden- 

 yellow colour, smooth on both outer and inner surface. It is very 

 fragrant, agreeably aromatic, taste pleasant, warm, aromatic, slightly 

 astringent. Analysed by Vauquelin, it yielded volatile oil, tannin in 

 large quantity, an azotised colouring-matter, a peculiar acid, mucilage, 

 and fceculum. 



The root of the Cinnamon tree yields a kind of camphor, and the 

 leaves yield an oil which resembles oil of cloves, which it is often used 



NAT. HIST. DIV. VOL. I. 



to adulterate. This is quite distinct from the oil of cinnamon obtained 

 from the bark. The ripe berries yield by decoction a solid volatile 

 oil, similar to the oil of juniper. Cassia, according to Marshall and 

 others, is the bark of the old branches and trunk of the Cinnamomum 

 '/.< '//'ii/tcuni already mentioned, while others assert that it is the bark 

 of an entirely different species, namely, of the Cinnamomum Cassia 

 (Nees Fratres, et Blume), a native of China, but cultivated in Java. 

 This last view is much the more probable ; for not only is no Cassia 

 exported from Ceylon (except the rejected or third sort of Cinnamon, 

 which is introduced into England incorrectly under that name), but 

 almost all the Cassia which reaches Europe comes from Canton. Re- 

 agents produce very different effects both on the infusion and oil of 

 these two barks, which is a rational ground for believing them to be 

 obtained from different species. 



Cassia is easily distinguished from Cinnamon. The bales in which 

 it arrives are much smaller, containing only from two to four pounds, 

 bound together by portions of the bark of a tree. The quills are 

 thicker, rolled once or twice only, and never contain thinner pieces 

 within ; the diameter of the bark is much thicker than that of Cinna- 

 mon, and harder, the outer rind less carefully removed (large patches 

 of the cuticle and epidermis often remaining upon it), the colour 

 deeper, of a brownish fawn-colour (that raised in Guyana is yellowish), 

 with the odour of Cinnamon, but fainter and less grateful ; the taste 

 more acridly aromatic, pungent, less sweet, at the same time more 

 powerfully astringent, yet mucilaginous. 



Cassia is often substituted for Cinnamon, and it is also frequently 

 adulterated with Cassia Lignea (which is the bark of a degenerate 

 variety of the Cinnamomum Zeylanicum (Blume) growing in Malabar, 

 Penang, and Silhet), with the bark of Cinnamomum Culilawan, and 

 with portions- which by distillation have been deprived of their 

 volatile oil. 



Oil of Cinnamon is obtained chiefly from the fragments which fall 

 from the quills during the inspection and sorting at Colombo. These 

 fragments are coarsely powdered, and after being immersed for forty- 

 eight hours in sea-water, are distilled, when a milky fluid comes over, 

 which separates into two parts, a light oil which floats, and a heavy 

 one which sinks in the water. Eighty pounds weight of Cinnamon 

 yield about two ounces and a half of light oil, and five ounces and a 

 half of heavy oil. About 100 gallons of oil of cinnamon are annually 

 obtained at Colombo. As the oil which is met with in commerce is a 

 mixture of these two, the specific gravity is variable, 1'035 to T090. 

 In time a spontaneous separation takes place, and there are formed 

 beautiful transparent crystals of a stearoptin, or Cinnamon-Camphor. 

 Sometimes benzoic acid is formed. Oil of Cassia is also obtained by 

 distillation ; at first it is whiter than oil of cinnamon, afterwards it 

 becomes yellow, but never of such a fiery yellow as cinnamon-oil. 

 The odour is agreeable, but not so delicate and cinnamon-like : taste, 

 acrid, burning, but different from cinnamon. Specific gravity 1'0608 ; 

 it reddens litmus paper. At a low temperature crystals show them- 

 selves, which disappear with an increase of heat. Some consider these 

 a camphor, others benzoic acid. Benzoic acid unquestionably exists 

 in this oil. Oil of cinnamon is adulterated with oil of cassia, with 

 the oil of cassia-buds, with the oil of the Ceratus lauro-cerafus, or 

 Cherry-Laurel, and it is also said with oil of bitter-almonds, an exceed- 

 ingly dangerous intermixture. 



CINNAMON-STONE. [GARNET.] 



CINNAMON, WILD. [CINNAMODENDRON.] 



CINNYRID^E, a family of Passerine Birds of brilliant plumage, 

 living upon the juices of flowers, and representing in the Old World the 

 Trochilidce, or Humming-Birds of the New Continent and its islands. 

 They are known by the common names of Sun-Birds and Soui-Mangas. 



Cuvier, in defining his genus Cinnyria, states that the species com- 

 posing it have the tail no longer worn ; the bill long and very slender, 

 with the edge of the two mandibles finely serrated ; and the tongue, 

 which can be protruded from the bill, terminating in a fork. They 

 are, he observes, small birds, the plumage of whose males glitters in 

 the season of love with metallic colours, approaching in splendour 

 that of the Humming-Birds, which they represent in this respect in 

 the Old Continent, where they are found principally in Africa and 

 the Indian Archipelago. They live, he adds, on flowers, from which 

 they pump the juices : their nature is gay, and their song agreeable. 

 Their beauty makes them much sought after in our cabinets ; but as 

 the plumage of the females and that of the males during the interval 

 between the seasons of love is entirely different from its nuptial 

 brilliancy, it is difficult to characterise the species. (' Regne Animal.') 



Cinnyris, in Cuvier's arrangement, stands between Melithreptus and 

 Arachnothera. 



Mr. Vigors considers the Tenuirostrcs, or Suctorial Birds, the most 

 interesting group perhaps of the animal world. "Deriving," says 

 that author, " their subsistence for the most part from the nectar of 

 flowers, we never fail to associate them in idea with that more beauti- 

 ful and perfect part of the vegetable creation, with which, in their 

 delicacy and fragility of form, their variety and brilliancy of hues, not 

 less than by their extracting their nourishment from vegetable juices, 

 they appear to have so many relations. As the tribe is confined ex- 

 clusively to the torrid zone and the southern hemisphere, the natu- 

 ralists of our northern latitudes have little opportunity of observing 

 their manners or of inspecting their internal construction. Much 



4 A 



