440 THE UNIVERSE. 



tance. Bartholin tells us that the odour of the rosemary 

 indicates the coast of Spain more than ten leagues out at 

 sea, and the old historian Diodorus Siculus relates some- 

 thing analogous with respect to Arabia. 



The sugar-cane {Saccharum officinarum) , originally from 

 India and Arabia Felix, fills its pith with the alimentary sub- 

 stance which has been for so many ages extracted from it. 



Strabo, in his Geography, speaking of the productions 

 of these two cou,ntries, and Dioscorides also, in his great 

 repertory of medical lore, evidently make mention of this 

 grass. The former says it is a reed which yields honey. 

 Dioscorides is still more explicit. According to him the 

 reeds of India and Arabia yield a congealed thick honey 

 as hard as salt, which crumbles between the teeth, and 

 which is called sugar. According to the learned, the 

 Chinese have understood the culture of the sugar-cane 

 and the art of extracting its produce from the remotest 

 antiquity. 



B^lon even says that this plant is mentioned in a host 

 of Indian and Arabic works ; and Humboldt seems to con- 

 firm all this by attesting that it is found drawn upon the 

 oldest China porcelain. 



Thus, then, there can be no doubt that the sugar-cane 

 is indigenous in the Old World, and that its culture goes 

 back to a very remote period. 



of rose flowers; 16,000 kilogrammes (.35,312 lbs. avoirdupois) of jasmine flowers; 

 10,000 kilogrammes (22,070 lbs. avoirdupois) of violets ; 4000 kilogrammes 

 (8828 lbs. avoirdupois) of tuberoses, without counting the mint and rosemary 

 which are so common all through Provence. — Trois Regnes, p. 88. [I am informed 

 by Messrs, Low that great quantities of the flowers grown in the south of France 

 are used by the London perfumers, and that the flower season is watched as 

 anxiously there as the grain harvest in other districts. The scent ia extracted 

 there by means of fatty matters, and s,gain from these in London by alcohol. 

 The only blossom for which this climate is better suited than any other, and 

 which is used to any extent by perfumers, is that of lavender, the French being 

 of very inferior quality, — Tr.] 



