CASTOll OIL. 321 



not thicker than the little-finger, others nearly as thick as 

 a man's wrist ; other sorts are in flattish pieces, and all are 

 of various lengths, seldom exceeding two feet. They are 

 usually imported in packages called serons, made of dried 

 cow-hides. The quantity imported annually is from 80 to 

 90 tons; but much difficulty exists in ascertaining the 

 exact amount, as in the Board of Trade returns it is, 

 strange to say, mixed up with tanners' barks. 



Castor Oil. — A fixed oil obtained by expression from 

 the seeds (Plate XYI. fig. 82) of Ricinus communis, or 

 Talma Chrisli (Nat. Ord. Ruptiorbiacece) . 



This oil is produced in great abundance both in India, 

 its native country, and in America and the West Indies. 

 Its utility as a medicine has been known from the most 

 remote ages. The seeds have been found with Egyptian 

 mummies in sarcophagi. The Greeks called it Croton, a 

 name now applied to a closely allied genus ; the Romans, 

 remarking the striking resemblance in the seeds to the vile 

 insects called ticks, which infest living animals, especially 

 the dog and sheep, called it Ricinus, their name for the tick. 



The Raima Christi is a very large herbaceous plant with 

 handsome palmate leaves when grown in temperate cli- 

 mates, but it attains a larger size and acquires a woody stem 



Y 



