326 THE WILD RICE OP NORTH AMERICA. 



bags of sumach are at all times to be seen piled up destined for shipment 

 to various places, chiefly to England and the United States, where 

 there is a large consumption. It is to the trade in sumach that several 

 merchants in Sicily owe their large fortunes. 



An infusion of sumach yields a fawn colour bordering on green. It is 

 a substantive colour, but may be altered and improved by the judicious 

 application of mordants. The principal use, however, of sumach in dye- 

 ing is the production of black by means of the large quantity of gallic 

 acid which it affords. 



In calico printing sumach affords with a mordant of tin a yellow 

 colour ; with acetate of iron, weak or strong, a gray or black ; and with 

 the sulphate of zinc, a brownish yellow. Sumach is much used in tanning 

 for preparing the skins of sheep and goats for Turkey or Morocco leather. 

 The odour of sumach is agreeable and penetrating. Davy found in 480 

 parts of Sicilian sumach 78 parts of tannin. 



Under the name of tanner's sumach, and " sumac de Redon," in France 

 the powdered leaves of Coriaria myrtifolia, from their astringent proper- 

 ties, are occasionally used on the continent for tanning leather and dye- 

 ing black, but this substance is much inferior to the powder obtained from 

 the leaves of the Rhus. 



THE WILD RICE OF NORTH AMERICA (ZIZANIA 

 AQUATIC A). 



The water-oats, or wild Indian rice, common in many parts of the 

 North American continent, and we believe also in Russia, is a wholesome 

 nourishing article of diet, which deserves to be better known than it is 

 at present. 



The flower-stem comes up sheathed in a delicate green, membranous 

 leaf, and displays the elegant awned flowers ; from these the anthers 

 depend, of a delicate straw colour and purple, which have a most grace- 

 ful effect waving in the wind. The upper or spiked part is the one 

 that bears the seed. The green grassy leaves fall back from the stem, 

 and float upon the surface when they are no longer needed to protect 

 the seed. The plant grows in vast beds, in still waters, in a depth of 

 from three to eight feet, where there is a great deposit of mud and sand. 

 In many places, where there is little current, these beds increase so as 

 materially to fill up the shallow lakes, and impede the progress of boats 

 on their surface. 



The plant is usually six feet high or more, and has a panicle with 

 male flowers above and female below. It has been found growing wild 

 in the North "West Territory, in the lakes and streams all over the 



