BEPOETS FEOM THE SECTIONS. 297 



starch forms a cake at tlie bottom, tlie water is then all drawn 

 off, tlie cake of starcli cut out, and dried in the sun, and after- 

 wards rolled. He calls the starch a-rrowroot, and says it is " as 

 fine as any commercial arrowroot." He states that an infant 

 child in the Shoalhaven district was reared upon it and nothing 

 €!lse. He sent me some pounds of it, and I gave samples to 

 many of my friends. I also had some prepared for myself for 

 breakfast, in spite of my previous unpleasant experience of it, 

 and I was much pleased with its flavour, and as an article of diet 

 I can recommend it to those who prefer light and nutritious food 

 to beefsteaks and porter. I consider Mr. Henry Moss deserves 

 the thanks of the community for thus inaugurating a valuable 

 article of food, and I consider that they should take a substantial 

 form, thus giving a material guarantee of our appreciation of his 

 efforts to benefit mankind. It has been said "that the man who 

 makes two blades of grass grow where one only grew before is a 

 benefactor to his species"; how much more is he who gives us an 

 abundant supply of a perfectly new, nutritious, and palatable 

 article of food. I have brought with me this evening a specimen 

 of the starch granules of the Macrozamia mounted dry. The 

 smaller grains are chiefly round, rarely oval, the larger are 

 perfect ovoids, resembling so many small birds' eggs. They 

 differ from the other varieties of starch, as depicted in the second 

 part of the second volume of the third edition of Pereira's 

 "*' Materia Medica," and are "sz«^(?;zem." I have also brought 

 ii specimen frond of the plant for your inspection. 



EEFEEElSrCES TO ENaEAviNas : — 



No. 1. Macrozamia spiralis. 

 No. 2. Female cone. 

 No. 3. Male cone. 



No. 4. Under view of male cone 



bearing anthers (nat. size). 

 No. 5. Seed (nat. size). 



No. 6. Grannies of Macrozamia starcli, magnified 390 diameters. 



