378 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



Dr. Wellington, Mr. Boon, Solon Robinson, Mr. Olcott, Sen.;, 

 Mr. Lockwood, Hon. Horace Greeley and others — fifty members. 

 President Pell in the chair. Henry Meigs, Secretary. 

 The Secretary read the translations made by him from works 

 received by the last steamer, as usual, free of all charges, the 

 Bulletin Mensuel De La Societe Imperiale Zoologique D'Acclima- 

 tation. 



On the Chinese sugar cane, (Sorgho a Sucre,) and- particularly 

 on the wax obtained from it. By Mr. Hardy, Director of the Cen- 

 tral Nursery of the government, at Hamma, near Algiers : 



Dr. Turrell has very well remarked, in Provence, that this 

 sorgho does not secrete more wax than any other species of it^ 

 and they all give but little of it in Algeria, 



I liave endeavored to ascertain the amount of wax to be obtained 

 from it in different locations. 



Mr. Avequin has found that an acre of the violet sugar cane 

 would furnish about 100 lbs. of wax. The white kind of sugar 

 canes gave much less. 



The Sorgho a sucre contains much more wax than the violet 

 sugar cane. 



This extraction of wax from the Sorgho is yet confined to our 

 chemical laboratories, andit would be wrong in us to say what 

 general value may be made of it. Many very valuable industrial 

 products owe their birth to the laboratory. So it was originally 

 with Caoutchouc (India rubber) — first used by savages only. 



The extraction of the wax requires labor, which perhaps at 

 present may be wanting; but U will come from the Sorgho Sucre 

 of the north of China, imported into France by Monsieur De 

 Montigny. 



On the general cultivation of the Chinese Yam^ Dioscorea 

 Batata or Igname of China, by Mons, Remont of Versailles, in 

 the departments of the Seine-et-Oise, the Drome and the Landes, 

 (waste land.) Addressed to the President of this Society by 

 Mons. G. De Lacoste. 



" It has been pretended by some that this tuber was imported 

 into Europe a long time ago; but it was not before 1849, when 

 the museum of Paris received the first, sent by Mons. De Mon- 

 tigny, and also the information relative to it, from our Consul at 

 Chang-Hai — pointing out the important part which this plant 

 would probably have to play ;nnong our alimentary plants^ Since 

 then, and after our experiments with it in our Jardin des Pinnies, 

 Mons. Hardy, in the Central Nursery of Algiers, has raised them 

 at the rate of ten thousand pounds weight per acre, about equal 



