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removed by an iron rod, and subsequently reduced, while the silver was 
left. Tin, antimony, and iron also were found in small quantities. 
The Petroleum, or " earth oil," occurred in many places in the Irawad- 
dee valley, on the top of a sort of anticlinal in the rocks, as was the case 
also in America ; it was forced up by the pressure of the water surrounding 
it above. There were two varieties, one of which was quite harmless, but 
the other gave off much inflammable gas, and was therefore liable to ex- 
plode in a closed vessel. In many places, only the gas escaped from 
fissures in the earth, and it frequently burned, being called " spirit-tire," 
and forming the subject of a curious native legend. 
Mr. Fedden then gave an interesting account of the native inhabitants 
of the country. He stated that there were several tribes differing in lan- 
guage, dress, manners, and religion. The oldest inhabitants of Burma 
were called Talains ; they were short in stature, and had a dark brown 
skin, while the Karens were tall, more manly-looking and independent, but 
less cultivated, having no written language until the Church missionaries 
gave them the Burmese character. The Shans appeared to be a people 
intermediate between the Burmese and the Chinese. To a person travel- 
ling Northwards from the South of Burma, a regular gradation towards 
fairness of complexion among the inhabitants was apparent, and this was 
accompanied by slight alterations in costume, weapons, &c. In illustration 
of this, the transition from the dak, a great knife or chopper, in universal 
use in Pegu, to the long dak or sword in Upper Burma, then to the true 
sword worn by the Shan Tagoks, or Chinamen Shans, and finally to the 
double sword of China and Japan, was pointed out. Several of the betel- 
nut boxes were shown, and the mode of their manufacture from plaited 
bamboo, covered with numerous coats of paint finely polished, was ex- 
plained, and it was noticed that the Burmese box was more highly finished 
than the Shan box. The manufactures of pottery, and of paper, which 
was made from pith and resembled that produced in China, were also 
alluded to, and specimens shown. The Shans were great opium-eaters, 
and devoted much attention to the cultivation of the poppy on the hills ; the 
manufacture of the opium was very simple—the poppy-head was scratched 
to about 1-Cth inch deep with a three toothed instrument like a comb in 
the morning, and the juice, which was at first white, but darkened by ex- 
posure to light, exuded during the day, and was collected at night. 
The author had observed several ordinary English wild flowers in the 
Shan country, among them the brake-fern, violet, strawberry, butter-cup, 
arum, &c. He said that it was a fact only recently ascertained, and of 
which he had had ocular evidence, that the bamboo flowered once in every 
five years, producing a fleshy fruit about the size and shape of a pear, 
which the natives boiled and ate. The seeds were oat-shaped. After 
