342 I'HII.OSOPmCAL taansactions. [ANNo]72g. 



express a juice out of its leaves, which they say cools and strengthens the brain, 

 by rubbing the head with it. 



The 7th sort is called dawel-coronde, that is, drum-cinnamon, in Low Dutch 

 trommel-caiieel ; the reason of which name is, because the wood of this tree, 

 when grown hard enough, is light and tough, and is that sort of which the 

 natives make some of their vessels and drums, which they call dawel. The 

 bark is taken off, when the tree is yet growing, and is of a pale colour; the 

 natives use it in the same manner as the 6th sort. 



The 8th sort is called catte coronde, the thorny or prickly cinnamon: catte, 

 in the Ceylonese language signifying a thorn or prickle; accordingly this tree is 

 very prickly. The bark is in some measure like cinnamon, but the leaves differ 

 very much, and the bark itself has nothing either of the taste or smell of cin- 

 namon. The natives use the root, bark, and leaves of this tree in physic, ap- 

 plying them in form of cataplasms, to tumours and swellings arising from a 

 thick corrupt blood, which they say it cures in a short time. 



The 9th sort is called mael coronde, or the flowering cinnamon, because this 

 tree is always in blossom. The flowers come nearest to those of the first and 

 best sort, called rasse coronde, but they bear no fruit, which the other does. 

 The substance of the wood becomes never so solid and weighty in this as in the 

 other cinnamon trees abovementioned, which are sometimes 8, Q, or 10 feet 

 in circumference. If this everflowering cinnamon tree be cut or bored into, a 

 limpid water issues out of the wound, as out of the European birch tree; but 

 it is of no use, no more than the leaves and bark. 



The inhabitants of Ceylon say, that there is still another sort of cinnamon, 

 which they call toupat coronde, or the three-leaved cinnamon. It does not 

 grow in that part of the country which the Dutch East India Company is pos- 

 sessed of, but higher up towards Candia. 



All the several sorts of cinnamon trees must grow a certain number of years 

 before the bark is fit to be taken off; with this difference however, that some 

 of the trees of the same sort, as for instance of the first and best, will ripen 

 2 or 3 years sooner than others, owing to the difference of the soil they grow 

 in. Those, for instance, which grow in valleys, where the ground is a fine 

 whitish sand, will in 5 years time be fit to have the bark taken off"; others, on 

 the contrary, which stand in a wet slimy soil, must have 7 or 8 years to grow, 

 before they are ripe enough. Again, those trees are later which grow in the 

 shade of other larger trees, by the sun being kept from their roots; and hence 

 also it is, that the bark of such trees has not that sweetness and agreeable taste 

 observable in the bark of those trees which grow in a wliite sandy ground. 



