VOL. XVir.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 427 



On the Wild Cinnamon Tree. By Dr. Hans Sloane. N° \gi, p. 465. 



Arbor baccifera, laurifolia, aromatica, fructu viridi calyculato ramoso, or the 

 wild cinnamon tree,* commonly, but falsely, called cortex winteranus, has a trunk 

 about the thickness of a man's thigh, rising to about 20 or 30 feet high, with 

 many branches and twigs hanging down from it, forming a beautiful top. The 

 bark consists of two parts, one external and the other internal. The former 

 bark is thin as a milled shilling, of a whitish ash or grey colour, with some 

 whiter spots here and there upon it, and several shallow furrows of a darker 

 colour, running variously through it, which make it rough ; it is of an aromatic 

 aste. The inner bark is much thicker than cinnamon, being as thick as a 

 milled crown piece, smooth, of a whiter colour than the outer, and of a much 

 more biting and aromatic taste, something like that of cloves, and not gluti- 

 nous like cinnamon, but dry and crumbling between the teeth. The leaves 

 come out near the ends of the twigs without any order, standing on foot-stalks 

 an inch long, they are each of them 2 inches in length, and I inch broad near 

 <he end were broadest, and roundish, being narrow at the beginning, from 

 whence they increase in breadth to near the end ; they are of a yellowish green 

 colour, shining and smooth, without any incisures about the edges, and some- 

 what resembling the leaves of bay or laurocerasus. The ends of the twigs are 

 branched into branches of flowers, standing something like umbellae, each of 

 which has a footstalk, on the top of which is a calix, consisting of some small 

 leaves, in which stand five scarlet or purple petala, within which is a large 

 stylus. To these succeed so many calyculated berries of the size of a large 

 pea, roundish and green, and containing, within a mucilaginous pale green thin 

 pulp, four black shining acini or seeds, of an irregular figure. 



All the parts of this tree, when fresh, are very hot, aromatic, and biting to 

 the taste, something like cloves. It grows in the low-lands or Savanna woods, 

 and very frequently on each side of the road between Passage Fort and the town 

 of St. Jago de la Vega, in Jamaica, as also in Antigua and the other Caribbee 

 islands. The bark of this tree is what is chiefly in use, both in the plantations 

 of the English between the tropics in the West Indies and in Europe ; and is 

 easily cured by only cutting off the bark, and suffering it to dry in the shade. 



On the Circulation of the watery Vapours of the Sea, and the Origin of Springs. 

 By Mr. E. Halley. N° I92, p. 4(>8. 



Some time since I showed an experiment of the quantity of water raised in 



• Winterana Canella. Linn, 

 3 I 2 



