174 [Assembly 



proves its unfitness for coating telegraph wires; it is a conductor 

 of electricity instead of a non conductor, like the former. But 

 it has a singular utility. The catgut used for turning lathes is 

 attacked by rats, and the whip cords substituted stretched or 

 shrank alternately. We soaked them in Mudder milk; no animal 

 meddles with these. It is used to render cloth and leather water- 

 proof, and bow strings elastic. Mudder is, by botanists, called 

 Calotropis gigantea. (Lindley says it is called Akund, Tercum, 

 or Mudar.) 



LEAVES OF THE COFFEE TREE— EXCELLENT SUBSTI- 

 TUTE FOR TEA. 



Dr. Gardner, of London, exhibited at the Crystal Palace, in 

 London, in 1851, prepared coffee leaves, and the essence or caffeine 

 extracted from them. Ceylon papers since ask for supplies of 

 tons of coffee leaves. On western side of Sumatra, roasted coffee 

 leaves are used in infusion to such an extent as to be regarded as 

 one of the few necessaries of life. N. M. Ward, Esq., of Padang, 

 says. May 15, 1853 : — Although long aware of the value of it as 

 an article of diet among the natives, it strikes m^ that its adop- 

 tion in Europe would be attended with important advantages to 

 the laboring classes. The natives here universally use it, prefer- 

 ring it to pure water, which they assert does not quench thirst or 

 give strength as coflfee leaves do. With a little boiled rice, and 

 an infusion of the coffee leaves, he supports the severe labor of 

 rice planting, up to the knees in mud, under an alternate burning 

 sun and drenching rains, which liquor or water will not enable 

 him to do. For twenty years I have observed the comparative 

 effects of the coffee leaf tea in one class of natives, and of spiri- 

 tuous liquors in another. The native Sumatrans use the first, and 

 the natives of British India the spirits. I find that the former 

 expose themselves with impunity for any period to every degree 

 of heat, cold and wet, while those who use spirituous liquors can- 

 not endure wet or cold without danger to their health. Engaged 

 myself in agriculture, and being, consequently, much exposed to 

 the weather, I was induced, several year ago, from an occasional 

 use of the coffee leaf tea, to adopt it as a daily beveraoe, and my 

 constant practice has been to take a couple of cups of strong in- 



