•218 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [anNO IJSJ. 



Cinnamon in the stick is a great curiosity, and seldom seen in Euroi^e. Clu- 

 sius tells us, that he saw 1 specimens of it. Anciently indeed it was often brought 

 in this manner, viz. with the bark surrounding the wood ; and it is believed by 

 authors of very great credit, that the wood, not divested of its bark, as we now 

 see it, or the bark stripped from the wood, was called by different names. And 

 notwithstanding the various controversies, which have arisen in endeavouring to 

 fix properly these various terms, it appeared to the late Mr. Ray, that our cin- 

 namon, the cinnamon of the ancients, and the cassia lignea of the ancients, were 

 quite or nearly the same thing ; and that they only had their difference from the 

 soil in which they were produced, or from the circumstances under which they 

 were brought. Thus the younger branches of the tree with their bark covering 

 them, were called by the Greek writers jtin-ajawjuoi/, cinnamomum, and sometimes 

 guAoxao-ia, Or cassia lignea ; but when they were divested of their bark, which, by its 

 being dried became tubular, this bark was denominated )ta(ri'a c-vpiy^, or cassia fis- 

 tula. But as, in process of time, the wood of this tree was found useless, they 

 stripped the bark from it, and brought that only, which custom prevails at this day. 



Both Theophrastus and Pliny mention a very odd, and doubtless a fabulous 

 account of the manner of separating the bark from the wood. They say, that it 

 is cut into short pieces, and sewed up in a fresh hide ; and that then the worms 

 produced by the putrefaction of the hide destroy the woody part, and leave the 

 bark untouched. However the cinnamon, or cassia cinnamomea of Herman, 

 the cassia lignea, and cassia fistula of the ancient Greek writers, might approach 

 near each other, they were applied by the modems to very different substances. 

 By cinnamon is now always understood that only produced in Ceylon ; by cassia 

 lignea, the cinnamon of Sumatra, Java, and Malabar, much inferior in every 

 respect to the former, though nearly agreeing with it in appearance, and not at 

 all woody, as the appellation seems to insinuate ; and by cassia fistula, a fruit 

 not described or used by the ancient Greeks, and agreeing with it in no one 

 particular, only that both are vegetable productions : great care should be taken 

 therefore that this confusion is not productive of error. 



Burman, in his Thesaurus Zeylanicus, takes notice of his being in possession 

 of 9 different sorts of cinnamon of Ceylon ; the most excellent of which is that 

 which is called by the inhabitants rasse coronde, and is what is most usually 

 brought to Europe. 



What we now call cinnamon, is only produced in Ceylon, of which the states 

 of Holland are in possession ; and 59 jealous are they of this tree, which affords 

 so valuable an article of commerce, that the fruit or young plants are forbidden 

 by an order of state to be sent thence, lest other powers might avail themselves 

 of it. And this they have been hitherto successful enough to keep to them- 

 selves ; though in Ceylon, according to Mr. Ray, the cinnamon-tree grows as 

 common in the woods and hedges, as the hazel with us, nor is of greater esteem 



