VOL. XVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 443 



Then take some birch-bark, and lay it on the fire, and let the stones be well 

 smoked over it for the space of an hour, until they are well dried in the smoke ; 

 then hang them up in a kitchen, or in the air, for a weak or more, until they 

 are perfectly dry and hard, after which they may be packed up in a cask, or 

 otherwise, for sale. If there be more stones than will conveniently go into the 

 skillet or kettle, you may make another boiling of them, and add a proportion 

 of fresh ashes, and order them as before. 



Observations on the making of Cochineal, according to a Relation of an old 

 Spaniard at Jamaica, who had lived many Years in that Part of the West- 

 Indies, where great Quantities of that rich Commodity are yearly made. 

 N° 193, p. 502. 



The insect, of which the cochineal is made, he affirms to be the same that 

 we call the lady-bird, alias cow-lady;* which at first appears like a small 

 blister, or little knob, on the leaves of the shrub on which they breed, which 

 afterwards, by the heat of the sun, becomes a live insect, or small grub. This 

 shrub is allowed by several authors to be the same that we call the prickle- 

 pear, or Indian fig, having thick roundish leaves, that grow out of one 

 another, and full of sharp prickles. These grubs in process of time becoming 

 flies, like our lady-birds, as above, and being come to full maturity, which 

 must be found out by experience in collecting them at several seasons, they 

 kill by making a great smother of some combustible matter, to windward of 

 the shrubs whereon the insects are feeding, having before spread some cloths 

 all under the plants, whereby all the insects being smothered, by shaking the 

 plants, they tumble down on the cloths. Thus they are gathered in great 

 quantities with little trouble. Then they spread them on the same cloths 

 in some bare sandy place, or stone pavement, and expose them to the heat 

 of the sun, until they are dry, and their bodies shrivelled up, which being 

 rubbed gently between the hands, will crumble into grains, and the wings 

 separate from them, which must be garbled out. Others, it is said, expose 

 them to the sun in broad and shallow copper basins, wherein the reflection of 

 the sun dries them sooner. These plants, called the Indian fig, are easily and 

 quickly propagated, by putting a single leaf above half its depth into the 

 ground, which seldom fails to take root and throw out other new leaves at 



* On the contrary, it belongs to the Linnxan genns coccus, and is the coccus cacti of Linusus. 

 A more particular description will occur in the ensuing volumes. What seems to have given rise to 

 the error in this paper, relative to the real insect, is, that a species of lady-bird, viz. the coccmcUa 

 cacti of Linnaeus, is often found on the same plant, and gathered among the cocci. 



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