780 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. II., No. 45. 



evidence of earlier ages, one of whicb, taking one of 

 its perishable materials as the type of all, we may 

 call the age of wood. Still farther back must lie an 

 age, as indefinite in duration as any, when man ex- 

 isted in his rudest condition, without arts of any kind, 

 except such as he employed in common with lower 

 animals; and this is the true primitive period." 



— In the Bulletin of tlie Societe i/eogr. de Marseille 

 for June, Heckel gives new information, with aresiiine 

 of old, in regard to the African nut known as Kola, or 

 Guru. This seed, which is hardly to be called a nut, 

 has a kernel about two inches in length, somewhat 

 like that of a peanut, with a groove instead of a pro- 

 jecting point at the germinal end. It may be white 

 or red, or both, to the number of four or five, in the 

 same rough brown pod. It is the product of a tree 

 of the family Sterculiacea. The genus has been called 

 Sterculia, Kola, etc., and there are several species or 

 varieties. This nut, or seed, is remarkable on account 

 of containing (beside glucose, tannin, and a bitter 

 principle) caffeine and theobromine in large propor- 

 tion. Among the African tribes it takes the place of 

 tea and cotlee or cocoa, — products of plants belong- 

 ing to very different groups, but valued for the same 

 essential principle. It has been used from time im- 

 memorial, and many singular stories have been cur- 

 rent as to its effect upon the system, though little 

 authentic information was at hand. 



Kola is gathered twice a year, carefully shelled, and 

 the bare meats are immediately despatched into the 

 interior, carefully wrapped in green leaves to insure 

 them from drying. They have to be carefully picked 

 over every twenty or thirty days, and all defective 

 ones thrown out. It is considered very important that 

 they should be kept fresh and somewliat moist. How- 

 ever, as soon as they begin to shrivel and dry up, the 

 caravan merchants dry them thoronghly in the sun, 

 and pound them to .a powder in a mortar. The seeds 

 are worth twenty or thirty cents a pound at the place 

 where gathered, near Sierra Leone ; but they rapidly 

 increase in value away from the original market. At 

 Goree a single seed will be sold at six to ten cents, 

 according to the state of the market. In the interior 

 the tribes on the Niger pay as high as one dollar per 

 seed, and in times of scarcity a slave has been given 

 for one seed. In the far interior the Arab merchants 

 frequently dispose of the powder for its weight in 

 gold-dust. 



The Kola is the stimulant of the African tribes, 

 and is in order on every occasion. Among those peo- 

 ples where the nut is not indigenous, nor yet too ex- 

 travagantly dear, no transaction of any moment can 

 take place without an exchange of Kolas. This is 

 either in token of good will or to ' bind the bargain.' 



If two tribes ally themselves, they exchange white 

 Kolas, this color being always the token of good will 

 and peace. If war is declared, the announcement is 

 made by sending red Kolas to the enemy. A request 

 for a wife is accompanied by the present of a white 

 Kola from the lover to the intended mother-in-law. 

 The response favorable is by a seed of the same color; 

 a refusal, by a red one. The wedding present of the 

 husband to his bride is incomplete without a certain 



proportion of Kolas. In the interior, where they 

 are so valuable, the gift of one is considered a high 

 attention, and, wlien given by a chief to a white trav- 

 eller, takes the character of an assurance of protec- 

 tion. One of the chiefs of the upper Niger sent 

 Zweifel and Mousteir red Kolas wrapped in green 

 leaves as a sign that they would not be jierraitted to 

 ascend certain sacred water-courses included in their 

 programme. 



In religious and judicial proceedings they are equal- 

 ly important. All oaths are taken on these seeds: 

 the witness holds his hand over them, swears, and 

 then eats them. An accuser demanding justice 

 brings to the judge a little basket of rice with four or 

 five Kolas upon it. The sorcerers lay great stress on 

 the attractive qualities of this seed in drawing away 

 evil spirits, sickness, and misfortune. Friends place 

 with the dead some Kolas, that he may safely endure 

 his 'long journey;' and, to crown all, the Mahome- 

 tans declare it to be a fruit of divine origin, brought 

 to earth by the Prophet himself. 



The nut is chewed as if it were tobacco: the pow- 

 der is eaten. The taste is sweet, astringent, and bit- 

 ter in succession. Europeans as well as negroes are 

 devoted to it. It not only sustains the system under 

 the greatest fatigues, even without food and for long 

 periods, but it is also a certain preventive of the 

 dysenteries and deadly fluxes whicli render that re- 

 gion so unhealthy. The powder makes foul water 

 drinkable and harmless. The negroes, without suffi- 

 cient cause, regard it as an aphrodisiac; and for this 

 reason, in Martinique, in tlie botanical garden, where 

 there is a plant brought from Africa, the director has 

 never been able to save a single seed for propagation. 



— Apropos to Professor Leidy's interesting article 

 in No. 43, a correspondent draws our attention to the 

 fact that the botanists have not overlooked the crys- 

 tals in tlie bark of forest-trees. See, for example, 

 Gray's Botanical text-book, from second to fifth edi- 

 tions, in whicli those in the bark of the locust-tree 

 are mentioned, and those of hickory figured. 



— Dr. A. Graham Bell has reprinted in pamphlet 

 form, from the ' American annals of the deaf and 

 dumb,' a very interesting account of the method fol- 

 lowed by him in teaching a boy, deaf from his birth, 

 to read the written language and to write English 

 himself. The child was five years old when the 

 course of instruction described began, and had re- 

 ceived only three weeks' private instruction from the 

 principal of the Boston school for the deaf and dumb. 

 About a year later he was able to write a letter to his 

 mother, which, to be sure, contains many mistakes, 

 and is not always readily intelligible in its sentences, 

 but which yet shows that he could already communi- 

 cate with others in writing. The author gives speci- 

 mens of such letters written without assistance. One 

 cannot read these few pages without a strong feeling 

 of admiration for the ingenuity and patience displayed 

 in producing such a result, which shows how much 

 can be done for the early education of the deaf and 

 dumb. 



— Mr. Estaban Duque Estrada, a native Cuban, has 

 made an extended investigation of the useful qualities 



