Chap. III. FAILURE OF THE EXPERIMENT. 51 



He certainly proved himself to be a most indefatigable and 

 courageous traveller. 



M. Hasskarl, and his associate M. Teysmann, selected the 

 site for the first chinchona plantation, at a place called 

 Tjibodas, thiiiy miles south of Batavia, on the northern slope 

 of the volcanic range which traverses Java from east to west, 

 and 4400 feet above the sea. Ground was also prepared at 

 Tjipannas, half a mile above Tjibodas, and 4700 feet above 

 the sea. These sites were covered with rasamala-trees of 

 immense size [Liquidamhar Altingia,^ Blume), wliicli had to 

 be felled. The superintendents, deceived by the sight of such 

 large trees, imagined that the soil was deep and good, but in 

 reality it was not more than six inches deep, and underneath 

 there was a formation completely impenetrable to roots, 

 called tjadas, comj)Osed of sand and small stones of tra- 

 chytic origin, strongly cemented together by crater slime, 

 the whole being as hard as rock. Not one of the huge 

 rasamala-trees in reality pierced this tjadas with their roots, 

 but ran along its surface horizontally for hundi-eds of feet. 

 In these localities the chinchona-plants continued to languish 

 during the year 1855, and in the end of that year the experi- 

 ment presented a most hopeless appearance. 



The causes of tliis failure are sufficiently evident. After the 

 felling of the rasamala-trees, the young chinchona-plants were 

 exposed to the full force of a burning sun, without any shade 

 whatever, in an extraordinarily thin soil upon a rocky bank 

 impenetrable to roots. The dead and rotted roots of the 

 rasamala-trees were allowed to remain, developing fungi 

 which attacked the chinchona-roots ; and the sites themselves 

 were in much too low and warm a climate. In consequence 

 of the combined effects of these adverse influences, there were 



' A lofty tree, 150 to 200 feet liigli, with a verj' close-graiiied wood. It 

 yields a fragi-ant resin called storax. 



E 2 



