Dec. 30, 1880] 



NA TURE 



191 



new face upon the cultivation in Java. The bark of some 

 of the trees has yielded as much as 10 per cent, of 

 quinine ; and the news of this remarkable result has 

 produced much the same effect on Cinchona planters in 

 Ceylon and Southern India as the discovery of a gold-field 

 on the inhabitants of an Australian city. The Java 

 officials have however behaved with singular liberality in 

 the matter, and in the course of a few years it cannot be 

 doubted that Ceylon will be abundantly supplied with this 

 valuable kind, which, there seems reason to think, may 

 prove to be a distinct species. Part of the seed sent in 

 the first instance to the Nilgiris seems to have found its 

 way to Sikkim, and the Government plantations there are 

 believed to be in possession of a strain of Calisaya, little 

 if at all inferior to that possessed by the Dutch. 



The Government of Bengal have effected an enormous 

 saving by using, in hospitals and dispensaries, instead of 

 quinine imported from Europe, the febrifuge manufactured 

 at the Sikkinr plantations. The Government estimated 

 that in consequence, by the end of 1879, " the plantations 

 will have cleared off the entire capital that has been 

 invested in them." 



And this leads us to what is really the painful feature 

 in Mr. Markham's book. He complains in repeated and 

 in bitter terms of the want of justice which has been 

 shown to those whom he employed in the business of 

 collecting. " Those who did the work have not received 

 fair recompense for most valuable services." It is rather 

 singular to find that he adduces in support of this state- 

 ment the case of Mr. Ledger, who was not even in 

 any way commissioned to do what he did. But the 

 remuneration which his actual agents received was the 

 ground of no complaint on their part, and was in point of 

 fact liberal compared with that which is given to the 

 collectors who are constantly employed by the great 

 nurserymen, and who too often lose their lives in their 

 arduous pursuits without the satisfaction of feeling that 

 they are doing so in an enterprise like this of lasting 

 utility. But we fear that if Mr. Markham's assistants 

 have reason to complain the blame must, on his own 

 showing, be laid at his own door. He tells us (p. 271) : 

 " The system I adopted was ... to include very slight 

 remuneration in the original agreements. Thus the loss 

 to Goventiiicnt ivould be insignificant if the work 2uns not 

 executed satisfactorily. If, on the other hand, the arduous 

 tasks were successfully performed ... I anticipated no 

 difficulty in obtaining fitting recognition for such dis- 

 tinguished services." We leave our readers to judge of 

 the probability of such a scheme answering Mr. Mark- 

 ham's expectations. We may go further, and ask how 

 the claims would have stood if, notwithstanding all the 

 pains that were taken, the cultivation of Cinchonas had 

 fared in India — as might even have happened — no better 

 than it at first did in Java 



But there are many other things pleasanter than this 

 which we should like to touch upon if this review had not 

 already run to an inordinate length. So many English- 

 men are now in one way or other interested in colonial 

 industries that it will be strange if this interesting book 

 does not find as many readers as it deserves. Besides a 

 complete history of the Cinchona enterprise in the Old 

 World, it gives, in an appendix, accounts of some other 

 South American vegetable products, notably india-rubber. 



The steps taken at Mr. Markham's instance for the 

 introduction into India of the most important rubber- 

 yielding plants of the New World have been from time to 

 time recorded in our pages. We have only to repair one 

 inadvertent omission on Mr. Markham's part, and point 

 out that the transmission of the Para rubber plant to 

 India was secured by the exertions of Mr. Wickham, as 

 recorded in the Kcvv Report for 1876, p. 8. 



PRACTICAL BLOWPIPE ASSAYING 

 Practical Blowpipe Assaying. By George Attwood. 

 With Seventy-four Woodcuts. (London : Sampson 

 Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington, 1880.) 



THIS book shows many signs of carelessness on the 

 part of the author. At the very outset, in the 

 Introduction, we meet with strange statements. Mr. 

 Attwood divides the elements into those which are of 

 commercial value and those which are of no commercial 

 value. In the latter class we find Uranium and Tungsten; 

 surely the author does not intend to deny the value of 

 pitchblende and wolfram. He classifies zirconium among 

 the non-metallic elements. 



The first part of the work describes the reagents and 

 apparatus ; the second, we are told, contains the modes 

 of determining any one of the sixty-four well-recognised 

 elements, and in the third part we have the methods 

 adopted by the author for making quantitative assays by 

 the blowpipe. Finally, Part IV. contains some tables 

 showing the English and American values of gold ac- 

 cording to its fineness, and the value of gold coins in the 

 United States. 



The apparatus employed is much the same as that 

 recommended by Plattner. Like Neumann, Mr. Attwood 

 very wisely uses riders with his balance instead of the 

 very small weights supplied by some of the other Freiberg 

 opticians ; but the balance would be improved by the 

 addition of a movable arm for shifting these riders. 

 The steelyard devised by the author will probably be of 

 use to explorers. From practical experience with the 

 batea I can fully endorse all that is said in its favour, 

 but why are the merits of the iron pan ignored ? It 

 has the advantage that it will stand rougher usage than 

 the batca. Again, for washing a sample of tin ore nothing 

 will beat the Cornish vanning shovel. 



I regret to see no mention of the useful little pastilles 

 and crucibles made out of charcoal powder, proposed by 

 Griffin thirty or forty years ago and adopted by Plattner. 

 Col. Ross's aluminium plate for sublimates seems also to 

 have escaped Mr. Attwood's notice. 



With reference to the list of reagents I must remark 

 that the author does not name all the reagents which his 

 tests require, whilst others are inserted which he does 

 not appear to put to any use. I should be glad to know 

 what he means by inserting " nitrous acid" among his 

 reagents. This is not a misprint for " nitric acid," because 

 that acid has been already named. 



The plan of the second part of the work is not one 

 which I should recommend. It simply contains a list of 

 tests for the various elements, but gives no systematic 

 scheme for making the examination of an unknown 

 substance. I fear that the " direct " method advocated 

 by Mr. Attwood will often prove a very tedious one. 

 Many of the tests themselves are not so complete as they 



