CHAP. XI. THE RICINUS AND OTHER OILS. 57 



the other method it is more pure, and the coarser 

 quaHties not being extracted, it is better suited for 

 medicinal purposes. Strabo says, " Ahnost all the 

 natives of Egypt used its oil for lamps, and work- 

 men, as well as all the poorer classes, both men 

 and women, anointed themselves with it," giving 

 it the same name, kiki, as Pliny, which he does not 

 confine, like Herodotus, to the oil : and of all those 

 by wliich it was formerly known in Egypt or 

 Greece, no one is retained by the modern Egyptians. 

 It grows in every part of Upper and Lower Egypt ; 

 but the oil is now little used, inconsequence of the 

 extensive culture of the lettuce, the coleseed, the 

 olive, the carthamus, and the simsim, which affoi'd 

 a better quality for burning: it is, therefore, seldom 

 employed except for the purpose of adulterating 

 the lettuce and other oils ; and the Ricinus is rarely 

 cultivated in any part of the country. 



Herodotus tells us the ancient Egyptians adopted 

 both metliods, of pressing and boiling the seeds, 

 which is much more probable tiian the statement 

 of Pliny ; the choice of the two depending, as I have 

 observed, on the quality of the oil they required. 

 *' The cnicon, a plant unknown in Italy, according 

 to Pliny *, was sowii in Egypt for the sake of the 

 oil its seeds afforded ; " the chorticon, urtica, and 

 amaracust were cultivated for the same purposed, 

 and the cypros, "a tree resembling the ziziphus 

 in its foliage, with seeds like the coriander, was 

 noted in Egypt, particularly on the Canopic branch 



* Plin. xxi. 1.). t Plin. xxi. II. 22. 



J Plin. XV. 7., antl xxii. 13. 



