234 DESCRIPTION OF THE MUSEUM. 



objects of curiosity, as the beautiful stems of cer- 

 tain grasses (i); spaths of the palm-fruit; a 

 bunch of the sagus; misletoe on a branch of 

 oak ; unwoven cloth fabricated in the South Sea 

 Islands, etc. Two of the compartments between 

 the windows contain the gums and resins em- 

 ployed in medicine and the arts ; the third, dif- 

 ferent vegetable preparations, as indigo, Indian 

 rubber, perfumes, tapers made of the common 

 candleberry myrtle, mjrica cerzfera, and a phial 

 of the poison with which the natives of Java 

 taint their shafts ; the last is destined for vege- 

 table substances, of which the nature is not well 

 understood. 



The greater part of these objects, many of 

 which are from China, are contained in bottles, 

 and those of the ancient collection preserve the 

 labels of Vaillant and Geoffroy, to which the 

 modern classical names have been added. On 

 one of the tables in the middle of the gallery is a 

 vase, formed from the trunk of a palm, nineteen 

 inches high and eighteen in diameter, brought 

 from Porto Rico and presented by M. Mauge, at 

 the return of captain Baudin. 



Of the saloon already mentioned, on the left 

 of the entrance, the first part is occupied on 

 one side by cases containing the herbarium of 



(i) Arundo sagillata. Persoon. Gynerium, Humboldt and Bonpland. 



