ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 159 



jaunatre) was, in 1751, sold secretly in the market in Martinique. 

 "Les negres de Gruine'e disent que dans leur pays ils mangent habi- 

 tuellement une certaine terre, dont le gout leur plait, sans en tre 

 incommodes. Ceux qui sont dans Tabus de manger du Caouac en 

 sont si friands qu'il n'y a pas de chatiment qui puisse les empScher 

 de devorer de la terre." (Thibault de Chanvalon, Voyage a la Mar- 

 tinique, p. 85.) In the Island of Java, between Sarabaya and Sa- 

 marang, Labillardiere saw small square reddish-colored cakes exposed 

 for sale in the villages. The natives called them tana ampo (tanah, 

 in Malay and Javanese, signifies earth). On examination and in- 

 quiry, he found that the cakes consisted of reddish clay, and that 

 they were eaten. (Voyage a la Recherche de la P6rouse, t. ii. p. 322.) 

 The edible clay of Samarang has recently been sent to Berlin by 

 Mohnike, in 1847, in the shape of rolled tubes, like cinnamon, and 

 has been examined by Ehrenberg. It is a fresh-water formation de- 

 posited on limestone, and consisting of microscopic Polygastrica, 

 Graillonella, Naviculas, and Phytolitharia. (Bericht liber die Ver- 

 handl. der Akad. d. Wiss. zu Berlin, aus dem J. 1848, s. 222-225.) 

 The inhabitants of New Caledonia, to appease their hunger, eat pieces 

 as big as the fist of friable steatite, which Vauquelin found to con- 

 tain in addition no inconsiderable quantity of copper. (Voyage a la 

 Recherche de la Perouse, t. ii. p. 205.) In Popayan, and several 

 parts of Peru, calcareous earth is sold in the streets as an eatable for 

 the Indians; it is used with Coca (the leaves of the Erythroxylon 

 peruvianum). Thus we find the practice of eating earth diffused 

 throughout the torrid zone, among indolent races inhabiting the 

 finest and most fertile parts of the globe. But accounts have also 

 come from the North, through Berzelius and Retzius, according to 

 which, hundreds of cartloads of earth containing Infusoria ate said 

 to be annually consumed by the country people, in the most remote 

 parts of Sweden, as breadmeal, and even more from fancy (like the 

 smoking of tobacco) than from necessity ! In Finland, this kind of 

 earth is occasionally mixed with the bread. It consists of empty 

 shells of animalculse, so small and soft that they do not crunch per- 

 ceptibly between the teeth ; it fills the stomach, but gives no real 

 nourishment. In periods of war, chronicles and documents preserved 

 in archives often give intimation of earths containing Infusoria having 



