AND OTHER FRENCH COLONIAL PRODUCTS IN PARIS. 25 



it ; and he sold it again, a short time after, to a Paris banker, for 100,000 

 francs. It thus came into the hands of a company who work it on a large 

 scale, under the name of Pallu and Co. The works made from it, which 

 are exhibited, comprise vases, clocks, mantel-pieces, and various smaller 

 objects, all of a beautiful transparent colour, with red, green, or grey veins. 

 The price of this onyx is now three or four times that of ordinary marble ; 

 but as this quarry is easy to work, and of an extent which renders it 

 almost inexhaustible, it will no doubt much decrease in price, as soon as 

 proper means of communication are established. 



The limits of your space will not allow me to do more than briefly glance 

 at the products of other French colonies, which, although less in number, 

 are equally interesting. 



Martinique and Guadaloupe send some fine specimens of coffee, cocoa, 

 sugar, tapioca, arrowroot, cotton, tobacco, rum, cochineal, spices of every 

 description, and a good collection of vegetable oils, comprising the oil of 

 ben. (Aloriiiga pterygosperma), ground nuts (Arachis hypogced), croton seeds, 

 pignon d'inde (Croton Tigliuin), galba nuts (Calophyllum Calaba), and 

 bancool nuts (Aleurites triloba). Of textile fibres, the principal sorts exhi- 

 bited are the abaca (Musa textilis), aloe (Agave Americana), balisier (Helsonia 

 caribaza), and a very glossy vegetable silk, extracted from the Beaumontia 

 grandijiora. To this list we must add a fine assortment of liqueurs for 

 which those islands are celebrated, and a species of native tea, obtained 

 from the Capraria biflora. 



French Guyana, besides the usual productions of tropical countries, ex- 

 hibits a gum called Baluta, partaking of the properties of india-rubber and 

 gutta percha, some fine woods, and a large assortment of cotton, which 

 article is also contributed by Guadaloupe, Pondichery, and Reunion. A 

 curious sweet-scented gum, called Elemi or Guyana incense, extracted from 

 the Idea viridiflora, serves to show what precious materials for perfumery 

 might be derived from those gifted countries, if colonists would only take 

 the trouble of collecting them. 



The French settlements in West Africa exhibit principally palm oil, 

 cocoa-nut oil, castor oil, and a curious concrete oil cake, called Dika butter, 

 extracted from the seeds of the Mangifera gabonensis* 



The island of Reunion (or Bourbon), sends some very fine coffee, sugar, 

 cocoa, rum, tobacco, fancy woods, and a beautiful specimen of vanilla. 



From that little corner, retained by the French in India, called Pondicherry, 

 they have managed to send an extensive collection of specimens, com- 

 prising, among other things, oils extracted from the seeds of the 

 Cucumis sativa, Cucurbita maxima, and Bassia longifolia (Illipe nuts). The 

 collection of textile fibres is interesting, and includes the Bromelia ananas, 

 Calotropis giganlea, Sanseveria Zeylanica, Eriodendron anfractuosum, and 



* We gave an account of this curious product, known under the name of Dica, or 

 Odika bread, in the Journal of the Society of Arts, for November 25, 1859, and presented 

 specimens of it to the Pharmaceutical Society's Museum, the South Kensington 

 Museum, and the Industrial Museum of the Crystal Palace. — Editor. 



