266 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, [October r, 18S7. 
serious obstacle to the introduction of pure Ceylon tea. 
The question, however, has little importance 
when properly considered. If the active princi- 
ples are found excessive when infused in the 
usual way, let a little more water be added — or, 
quite as simple, put less tea ! Let people insist 
on getting the pure article, and blending it for 
themselves. When they learn to do so there will 
be little fear of the membranes of their stomachs 
suffering, and less of their paying for what they do 
not get. 
I must also take exception to the statement 
that Ceylon tea quickly loses its flavour. It was 
only the other day that an eminent tea merchant 
in this town expressed to me a contrary opinion, 
which he assured . me was based on a practical 
experiment of his own covering some five or six years. 
In the interest of Ceylon tea planters, many 
of whom hail from this town and neighbourhood, 
and of whose number I am, I trust you will 
find space for this letter. — Yours, &c, 
E. B. Arthur. 
104, Hamilton Place, Aug. 30th, 1887. 
— Aberdeen Journal. 
[Libels published by the Brokers interested in 
China tea, representing Indian tea as poison, long 
prejudiced the public in England, and this dis- 
honest policy is still pursued in Australia. — Ed.] 
♦ ■ 
THE FOEESTEY OF WEST AFEICA. 
Sketch of the Forestry of West Africa with Parti- 
cular Refere/nce to its Principal Commercial Products. 
By Alfred Moloney c. m. g., of the Government of 
the Colony of Lagos. (London : Sampson Low, Mar- 
ston, Searle, and Rivington, 1887.) 
This, as its title indicates, is intended to form a 
handbook to the economic plant-products of Western 
Africa. Although the author is Governor of a British 
colony in this region, his remarks are by no means 
confined to British possessions, but are inteuded to 
include all that is at present known of economic in- 
terest connected with the plants of Western Tropi- 
cal Africa. 
Following Prof. Oliver, the author deems it expedi- 
ent to divide Western Tropical Africa into two prin- 
cipal geographical regions. The first, called Upper 
Guinea, includes the Western coast region from the 
River Senegal ; on the north to Cape Lopez immed- 
iately .south of the equator; the interior drained by 
rivers intermediate between these limits, and the small 
island of the Gulf, Fernando Po, Prince's Island, St. 
Thomas, and Annabon. The second region, called 
Lower Guinea, includes West Tropical Africa from 
Cape Lopez southward to the Tropic of Capricorn, in- 
cluding Congo, Angola, Benguela, and Mossamedes. 
Within the limits here indicated we have British 
possessions represented by "colonies" and ''protected 
territories," and we have numerous possessions claimed 
hy the French, Portuguese, Spanish, and German 
Govprnments, some of which have only lately been 
acquired in the European scrambld for African ter- 
ritory. It is only right to mention that the term 
"possessions," as here applied, is somewhat a misno- 
mer. There is little practically possessed, even by 
ourselves, except a slender coast-line : the interior 
is described as having no "territorial definiteness," 
and it is politically, no less than scientifically and 
commercially, unexplored. Oapt. Moloney has wisely 
nut attempted to treat separately of the economic 
products of these possessions. He has taken their 
present economic botanical productions in order of 
export value, and we find that these consist chiefly 
of palm oil, ground nuts, india-rubber, coffee, gum, 
dye-woods, cacao, cotton, fibres, and timbers. Palm 
oil. the produce of Klceis guiAeensis, a plant which 
covers immense tracts of country in Western Africa, 
i» imported to this country to the value of nearly a 
million and a quarter annually. The yellow palm oil 
is obtained from the outsidr- fleshy portion (sarco- 
carp) of the nut, while a white solid oil is obtained 
from the kernel. India-rubber is another West African 
product obtained chiefly from climbing vines belong- 
ing to the genus Landolphia. The author was one of 
the first to draw attention to the value of Landolphia 
owartensis as a rubber-plant, and it must be gratifying 
to him to find that the exports of " white African 
rubber," as the produce is called, have during the 
last four years risen from almost nothing to a value 
of nearly £36,000. What is known as "Yoruba" indigo 
derived from a large tree, Lonchocarjjus ci/anescens, 
has evidently a commercial value, but at present it is 
used to mix with butter or " t ;hea ' to make the ne- 
groes' hair a fashionable gray ! 
Numerous West African plants are cited as yielding 
either gum tragaeanth, copal, frankincense, gum arabte, 
bdellium, or resin ; what is called "ogea" gum, de- 
rived from an unknown tree, JJaniellia sp., is 'used 
powdered on the body and as a perfume by women. 
The true frankincense-tree of Sierra Leone is Ban- 
eillia thurifera. Camwood, used largely as a dye, is 
derived from Paphia nitida; but although barwo'od 
is generally said to be derived from the same source, 
it fetches only one-sixth the price of the former. 
The medicinal properties possessed by numerous West 
African plants is a subject full of interest. 
Various species of Stt-ophanthus, the active principle 
of which was .formerly used for poisoning arrows and 
is known to be of incalculable benefit in cardiac dis- 
eases, and the merits of the "miraculous berry" (<St- 
deroxylqn dtdcijiciim) of the Akkrah and Adampe dis- 
tricts, which is credited with rendering the most sour 
and acid substances " intensely sweet," and of the 
"oro" plant of Sierra Leone, said to act as an irrit- 
ant poison cumulative in its effects (which has beeD 
ascertained at Kew to be a species of Euphorhia), are 
among the numerous subjects requiring further inves- 
tigation. 
A most cursory glance at this book cannot fail to 
suggest the wonderful wealth both of botanical and 
industrial problems which are yet unsolved in con- 
nexion with West Tropical Africa. The "Flora of Tro- 
pical Africa," by Prof. Oliver, of which three volumes 
are published (the lastin 1877) has made a begiuning 
in the work of elucidating some of these problems ; 
but in recent times few men have systematically pur- 
sued _ West African botany, and the entire absence of 
a resident botanist or of a properly-equipped botanical 
establishment in any of our West African colonies 
has left the plants of a most important region to be 
known ouly by the intermittent collections of travel- 
lers who have either perished there before their mis- 
sion has been completed, or have hastened home to 
avoid the effects of the deadly climate. 
Nearly 200 pages of Capt. Moloney's book are taken 
up with condensed notes and references to the eco- 
nomic plants of Western Africa arranged in natural 
orders according to the "Genera Plantarum" of Ben- 
tham and Hooker. To many people both in West 
Africa and at home these notes, brought together by 
the assistance of an officer connected with the Kew 
Museums, will prove of great value. In the append- 
ices are given a copy of the instructions for collect- 
ing plants, seeds, and useful plant-products issued 
by the Royal Gardens, Kew ; an ornithology of the 
Gambia, by Capt. Shelley ; a list of Coleoptera and 
of diurnal Lepidoptera of the Gambia, by the same 
writer; and a list of reptiles, batrachians, and fishes 
collected at the Gambia by Oapt. Moloney in 1884-85. 
The book is well got up and clearly printed, but it 
has the unpardonable defect of being published with- 
out a good alphabetical index. This greatly detracts 
from its value as a book of reference. It, however, 
is the chief fault we have to find with a work full 
of interesting matter for the first time brought 
together, and evidently prepared with great care. — 
D. M.— Nature. 
SLAVERY AND FREE LABOUE IN 
BRAZIL 
are thua noticed in the Bio Neivs: — 
We understand that the Centro do Commercioe 
Lavoura is studying plans for promoting immi- 
gration to the province of Rio de Janeiro and for 
