760 



UNTERWALDEN I'PSAL. 



UNTERWALDEN, OR UNDERWALDEN; 



one of the smaller Swiss cantons, in the centre of 

 Switzerland, bounded north by Lucerne and Wal- 

 stadter lake, east by mountains which separate it 

 from Uri, south by Berne, and west by Lucerne ; 

 square miles, 'J(j, with 20,000 Catholic inhabitants ; 

 chief towns, Stantz and Sarnen. The government 

 is democratic. The pasturage of cattle is the chief 

 support of the inhabitants, and the exports consist 

 of cattle, hides, cheese, butter and tallow. The 

 surface is mountainous ; and two of the summits, 

 Tittles or Titlis (10,296 feet high) and Surenes, 

 are covered with perpetual snow. The canton 

 measures about eight leagues each way, and is 

 divided into two valleys, Upper and Lower, by a 

 forest called Kernwald, which crosses it from north 

 to south. Sarnen is the principal place of the Up- 

 per Vale, and Stantz of the Lower and of the whole 

 canton. The two valleys send alternately a deputy 

 to the Swiss diet. Unterwalden is one of the can- 

 tons which, in 1308, concluded the league which 

 pave origin to the Swiss confederacy. It furnishes 

 382 men to the army of the confederacy. Its quota 

 of money is 1907 Swiss francs. See Switzerland. 



UPAS TREE (antiaris toxicaria) ; a Javanese 

 tree, celebrated for its poisonous qualities, which, 

 however, have been very much exaggerated. It 

 was long believed in Europe, that this tree was a 

 solitary one situated in a valley in Java, the pesti- 

 lential qualities of which were so great, that neither 

 herb nor animal could live within many miles of its 

 circle, and that criminals alone were sent to gather 

 poison from it, few of whom ever returned. Dr 

 Horsfield (in volume seventh of Batavian Transac- 

 tions) was among the first to give a correct account 

 of the poison-tree of Java. He says that, though 

 the ordinary accounts of it are fabulous, still there 

 exists a tree in Java, from the sap of which a fatal 

 poison is prepared. This tree is the " Anchar," 

 which grows in greatest abundance at the eastern 

 extremity of the island. It belongs to the twenty- 

 first class of Linnaeus, or the Moncecia. The male 

 and female flowers are produced on the same branch 

 at no great distance from each other ; the females 

 being in general above the males. The seed-vessel 

 is an oblong drupe, covered with the calyx ; the i 

 seed, an ovate nut with cell. The top of the stem 

 sends off a few stout branches, which spreading 

 nearly horizontally with several irregular curves, 

 divide into smaller branclies, and form an hemis- 

 pherical, not very regular crown. The stem is 

 cylindrical, perpendicular, and rises completely 

 naked to the height of sixty, or seventy, or even 

 eighty feet ; near the surface of the ground it spreads 

 obliquely like many of our large forest trees. The 

 bark is whitish, slightly bursting into longitudinal 

 furrows. Near the ground this bark is, in old trees, 

 more than half an inch thick, and when wounded, 

 yields copiously the milky juice from which the 

 poison is prepared. This juice or sap, is yellowish, 

 rather frothy ; and when exposed to air its surface 

 becomes brown. In consistence it is much like 

 milk, but thicker and more viscid. The sap is 

 contained in the true bark, or cortex. The inner 

 bark (liber} is a close, fibrous texture like that of 

 the paper mulberry-tree called morus papyfera ; and 

 when separated from the other bark and cleansed, 

 resembles coarse linen. It has been worked into 

 strong ropes ; and that from young trees is often 

 converte'd by poor people into a coarse stuff which 

 they wear while working in the fields. If wetted 

 by rain, however, this flimsy covering affects the 



wearer with an intolerable itching. Although this 

 curious property of the prepared inner bark is 

 known wherever the tree grows, yet the prep;n:u 

 tion of poison from its sap is a secret exclusively 

 possessed by the inhabitants of the eastern extrem- 

 ity of Java. 



In making his numerous experiments on the tree, 

 Dr Horsfield had some difficulty with his native 

 labourers,' who feared a cutaneous eruption, but 

 nothing more. This eruption, and other symptoms, 

 are produced by the well-known Chinese varnish- 

 tree, whose sap, like that of this poison-tree, is pro- 

 cured by making incisions in the trunk. 



The anchar is one of the largest trees in Java ; 

 it delights in a fertile, not very elevated, soil, and 

 is found only in the midst of the largest forest.- ! 

 " It is," says Dr Horsfield, " on all sides surrounded 

 by shrubs and plants, and in no instance with bar- 

 ren desert." The largest specimen he saw was so 

 embosomed in common trees and shrubs that he 

 could hardly approach it; wild vines and other 

 climbing shrubs, in complete health, adhered to it. 

 and ascended half the height of its stem. Whih: 

 he was collecting its sap he observed several young 

 trees that had sprung up spontaneously from seeds 

 dropped by the parent plant. 



Dr Horsfield also describes the preparation of 

 the poison, as the process was performed for him 

 by an old Javan, who was famed for his skill in the 

 art. The poison thus made seems to affect quad- 

 rupeds with nearly equal force, proportionate in 

 some degree to their size and disposition. It is 

 fatal to dogs in an hour, to mice in ten minutes, to 

 monkeys in seven, to cats in fifteen minutes, while 

 a poor buffalo subjected to the experiment was two 

 hours and ten minutes in dying. 



UPPER CANADA. See Canada. 



UPPER HOUSE AND LOWER HOUSE ; some- 

 times used for the house of lords and of commons, 

 or, in other countries, for the house of peers and 

 the house of deputies, or the first and second cham- 

 ber, as in Baden. Its application to the English 

 parliament is more common than to other legislative 

 bodies. 



UPSAL (in Swedish, Upsala}', a town of 

 Sweden, in Upland, capital of a district of the same 

 name ; thirty-five miles north of Stockholm ; Ion. 

 17 39 r E.; lat. 59 52' N.; population, 4800. It 

 is situated on the small river Fyris, or Sala, which 

 divides it into two parts, and opens a communication 

 with lake Malar. It contains a large cathedral and 

 two other churches : the cathedral is the largest in 

 the kingdom, and contains the tombs of some 

 Swedish kings, and many other monuments, among 

 which is that of Linnaeus. The archbishop of Up- 

 sal is the only one in Sweden. The private houses 

 are mostly built of wood, the public buildings of 

 stone or brick. The university of Upsal was 

 founded in 1477- Gustavus Adolphus and Chris- 

 tina did much for it. It can boast of Linnaeus, 

 Wallerius, and a number of other distinguished pro- 

 fessors. It has twenty-one professors, a library of 

 56,000 volumes and 1000 manuscripts, among which 

 is the Codex Argenteus. (See Argenteus.") Here 

 is also the manuscript deposited by Gustavus III. 

 with directions that it should not be opened until 

 fifty years after his death, a botanical garden, an 

 astronomical observatory, an anatomical theatre, 

 and cabinets of natural history and mineralogy, with 

 a cabinet containing 11,000 coins. The number of 

 students in 1829 was 1525; in 1815, 1200; 269 of 

 theology, 150 of law, and J23 of medicine. This 



