NOTES ON CHINESE MATERIA MEDICA. 275 



Nehou (France), Belgium and the Eifel, but they are not found 1860-62. 

 all existing together in any one of these localities. In external Fossil shells, 

 aspect the Chinese specimens most resemble those from Ferques, 

 where, however, two of them, Cyrtia Murchisoniana and Rhyn- 

 chonella Hariburii, have not yet been discovered. If to these 

 be added two described by M. de Koninck, the total number 

 of Chinese Devonian types at present known will amount to 

 ten species, viz. : 3 Spirifer, 2 Rliynchonella, .1 Productus, 

 1 Crania, 1 Cornuliles, 1 Spirorbis, and 1 Aulopora. 



These fossils are asserted to occur in the southern province of 

 Kwang-si, where coal is also met with. 



Additional Note. 



Insect- White-Wax. T. T. Cooper, 1 who passed through the Insect-WMte- 

 white-wax country of Szechuen in 1869, describes it as an ex- Wax< 

 tensive plain surrounded by low hills, lying between Ya-tzow-foo 

 and Kia-ting-foo, i.e., nearly south of Chen-tu-foo, the capital of the 

 province. The country was all under wax and rice cultivation, the 

 wax-trees being planted on the small embankments surrounding 

 paddy fields, which are at most but thirty yards square. The 

 trees have the aspect of stumps uniformly about eight feet in 

 height, and as thick as a man's thigh. The wax cultivation is 

 a source of great wealth, second only to silk. 



The eggs of the insect are all imported from Yunnan, and arrive 

 in Szechuen in March. Towards the middle of March the trees 

 put forth leaves and shoots, on which the young insects attach 

 themselves ; by July all the branches are thickly crusted with 

 wax ; in the beginning of August they are lopped off close to the 

 trunk, cut into small lengths and taken to the boiling houses, 

 where they are transferred to large cauldrons of water and 

 boiled. 



1 Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce, 1871, pp; 428-430. Also p. 323. 



T 2 



