54 TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



many birds, and even snakes, v^^lio had lost their lives 

 in this fatal place. Besides carbonic acid gas, sulphur- 

 ous acid gas also escapes. This was the only gas j)res- 

 ent at the time of Dr. Junghuhn's visit, and is prob- 

 ably the one that causes such certain destruction to 

 all the animals that wander into this valley of death. 

 The soft parts of these animals, as the skin, the mus- 

 cles, and the hair or feathers, were found by both ob- 

 servers quite entire, while the bones had crumbled 

 and mostly disaj)peared. The reason that so many 

 dead animals are found on this spot, while none exist 

 in the surrounding forests, is because beasts of prey 

 not only cannot consume them, but even they lose 

 theii* lives in the midst of these poisonous gases. 



It was in such a place that the deadly upas was 

 fabled to be found. The first account of this wonder- 

 ful tree was given by Mr. N. P. Foersch, a surgeon 

 in the service of the Dutch East India Com23any 

 His original article was published in the fourth vol 

 ume of Pennant's " Outlines of the Globe," and re 

 peated in the London Mag azine for September, 1785 

 He states that he saw it himself, and describes it as 

 " the sole individual of its species, standing alone, in 

 a scene of solitary horror, on the middle of a naked, 

 blasted plain, surrounded by a circle of mountains, 

 the whole area of which is covered with the skele- 

 tons of birds, beasts, and men. Not a vestige of vege- 

 table life is to be seen within the contaminated atmos- 

 phere, and even the fishes die in the water ! " This, 

 like most fables, has some foundation in fact ; and a 

 large forest-tree exists in Java, the Antiaris toxicaria 

 of botanists, that has a poisonous sap. When its 



