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NOTES ON THE ECONOMIC APPLICATION OF BARKS. 



BY JOHN R. JACKSON. 



To produce a complete history of barks, and the various uses to 

 which they are applied, would be a work of infinite research, if not 

 entire impossibility. The number of plants known to us as furnishing 

 useful barks is very great, but hidden treasures in this field, as in all 

 others, remain to be brought to light. Barks frequently come under 

 our notice as of reputed efficacy in various complaints, or usefulness in 

 the rude arts of savage tribes, but for want of confirmatory evidence, 

 brought out in experiments conducted by competent men, and a know- 

 ledge of their source, little or nothing can be said about them. The 

 uses of barks are infinite ; they furnish us with medicines, dyes, and 

 tanning substances, clothing, and other necessaries and luxuries. It 

 would be difficult to say from which branch of their application we de- 

 rive the most benefit — the scientific or the manufacturing ; in other 

 words, as medicine or clothing. The properties and uses of some of 

 the barks which are invaluable to us in these our own days were 

 e pially well known to the ancients, and perhaps none more so than 

 Cork, for this appears not only to have been known in times of remote 

 anticpiity, but also for like purposes to that ior which we use it now. 

 It is mentioned by Theophrastus and Pliny, the last writer especially 

 describing the use of it amongst the Romans for stopping vessels of 

 every description, and also for floats for fishing nets, as well as for 

 many other purposes. Of the barks of British plants comparatively 

 few are made use of in any way whatever. The oak is the chief ex- 

 ception, for it is extensively grown for the sake of its bark, which 

 is superior to all others for the tanning of leather. I have endeavoured 

 to make the following list as perfect as possible by including all 

 the barks which have come under my notice as having any special 

 property, whether real or reputed, and in this I have not given too much 

 attention to those barks in common use, and which are so well known. 

 Where it happens that any individual bark has more than one appli- 

 cation, I have dwelt more particularly upon it in the division to which 

 its use gives it the greatest claim. 



Medicinal Barks. 

 In this section, undoubtedly the most important is the Peruvian, 

 or Cinchona barks, to the cultivation of which so much attention has 

 of late been directed, and upon which so much has been written 

 by skilful chemists and botanists. An account of the introduction of 

 this invaluable plant into the East and West Indies will be found at 

 page 181, vol. ii., Technologist. Although one of our most valued 

 and important medicines is procured from this plant, it will be needless 

 to give more than passing notice here, as the subject has been 



