218 



of wax, that covers the trunk of a palm-tree *. 

 It is but a few years since we have discovered in 

 Europe casewn, the basis of cheese, in the emul- 

 sion of almonds ~f~ ; yet for ages past in the 

 mountains of the coast of Venezuela the milk of 

 a tree, and the cheese separated from that veget- 

 able milk, have been considered as a salutary 

 aliment. What is the cause of this singular 

 course in the unfolding of our knowledge ? How 

 have the vulgar in one hemisphere recognized, 

 what in the other has so long escaped the saga- 

 city of chemists, accustomed to interrogate na- 

 ture, and seize her in her mysterious progress ? 

 It is that a small number of elements and prin- 

 ciples differently combined are spread through 

 several families of plants ; it is that the genera 

 and species of these natural families are not 

 equally distributed in the torrid, the frigid, and 

 the temperate zones ; it is that tribes excited by 

 want, and deriving almost all their subsistence 

 from the vegetable kingdom, discover nourishing 

 principles, farinaceous and alimentary substances, 

 wherever nature has deposited them in the sap, 

 the bark, the roots, or the fruits of vegetables. 



* Ceroxylon andicola, which we have described in our 

 Plantes Equinoxiales, vol. i, p. 9, PI. i and ii. 



f Proust in the Journ. de Physique, vol. liv, p. 430. 

 Boullay and Vogel, in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 

 vol. vi, p. 408. 



