ON ALGERIAN PRODUCTS. 79 



any detailed information on its productions. You are "probably aware 

 that the tonnage duty on foreign ships in Algerian ports is now reduced, 

 and is levied only on the number of tons loaded in the colony. This 

 reform, I hope, will increase the commercial intercourse between Algeria 

 and Great Britain. The latter needs principally raw materials, which 

 are abundant products of Algeria. She can supply you with cereals, 

 wheat, oils, fibres, mineral ores, &c, and will take in exchange 

 cotton cloths, fuel, iron, materials for building, machinery, &c. The 

 relations of the two countries are already advantageous. The English 

 who come to make Algeria their winter quarters are each year more 

 numerous, and it is said that in a short time the Peninsular and Oriental 

 Company's steamers will touch at Algiers. 



Looking at the profitable business connections which can be esta- 

 blished, I think that it is the office of a journal like yours to accpiaint 

 the British trader with the raw materials of Algeria. If you will under- 

 take that duty, I will esteem it a pleasure to furnish you with full par* 

 ticulars, and all necessary documents and information. 



I think that some information on the Lawsonia inermis, of which the 

 leaves, dried and bruised, constitute the cosmetic dye so universally used 

 by the women from the East, would be acceptable to you. The henna 

 is a very interesting product, which will be in great request when better 

 known ; I will send you shortly a communication on this plant, its cul- 

 tivation and uses. I have seen mentioned in the quarto Indian cata- 

 logue for the London Exhibition of 1862, by Mr. Dowleans, p. 45, that an 

 essential oil has been obtained from the petals of Lawsonia inermis. Now 

 the flowers of this plant are without smell, and it appears to me that the 

 essential " oil of Mehudee " is rather the produce of some other species, 

 such as Lawsonia spinosa, L. alba, or others, &c. If you have any infor- 

 mation on this point, I should be obliged if you would inform me of it. 



Gum from the Schottia latifolia, Jacq. — I have had occasion to 

 examine lately, in the Garden of Acclimatization of Algiers, a small tree 

 from the Cape of Good Hope, the usefulness of which has not yet been 

 pointed out, as far as I know, and to which I think it right to draw the 

 attention of scientific men, who will be better able than I to decide what 

 it may be applied to. I allude to the Schottia latifolia, Jacq., of the 

 family of the Cisalpina. It is a tortuous tree, with thick branches, and 

 the specimen of it in the Garden of Acclimatization of Hamma is nearly 

 twelve feet high. The leaves are persistent, pennate, with four folioles, 

 small, oval, rounded, terminating with a short point, of a pale green at 

 the nervures, almost blueish in the young shoots, becoming dark green 

 with age. The flowers, disposed in bunches, are of a pretty, ornamental 

 aspect, and diffuse a fragrance of "vanilla, which attracts the visits of 

 bees and other insects. They bear four sepales, green, convex, and un- 

 equal, and four to five white petals, unguiculate. The stamens, as in all 

 the plants of this group, are ten in mvmber, three of which are larger 

 than the others. Their filaments are only joined at the base, and in the 



