Feb. i, 1895.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
529 
Peru, the famous .Mate-tea. is prepared. Even dis- 
tant Labrador is called upon to aid in furnishing a 
variety of the favourite beverage: at least in the 
North-west they have a tea called Mash-tea, and an- 
other called Labrador-tea,, made from two plants (Ledum 
pahistre and Ledum latifolium), the leaves of which 
possess moderate narcotic qualities, and are said to 
furnish a pleasant infusion. At the other end of 
the Union, in Texas New Mexico, and the adjoin- 
ing territories, Santa- Fe-tea, is popular, nride of the 
leaves of a plant which has the modest merit of 
looking like the tea-shrub (Alstonia theaformis), al- 
though the likeness does not extend to taste or flavor. 
I the Far-West at the foot of the Rocky Mountains 
grows a shrub known as Red Root, which produces 
a tea not unlike the genuine article, and is said, 
like the latter "to cheer and not inebriate." The 
sarsaperilla of the United States is not the Mexican 
plant (Smilax) with its tea and other far-famed pre- 
parations, but a variety of the ginseng plant, an 
Aralia and other herbs, used as substitutes. Teas 
are made, besides, from balm and elder blossoms, 
catnip and pennyroyal, horehound and snakeroot 
(ludicrously written suecrut by Signor Boccone, Rayo, 
1698). Dittany (Cunila Mariana) also furnishes a 
tea, and as it is apt to grow plentifully in its loca- 
lities, there is a popular notion that, when one has 
been found its leaves will point out the direction of 
others." 
Kvidently they understand something of the sorrows 
of editing in Germany. I cull this from " Meggendoerffer's 
Humorist iche Blatter" : — 
Druckfehlertenfel (Printer's Devil). 
Br orlicih d;is Uanpl und blockte sic lange wetrmutig 
an (He Liaised, his head and bellowed at them sadly for 
sometime) It ought to bo blirkte — an, gazed at. 
jhe same paper contains the following, which may 
amuse the few bachelors left in Ceylon : 
Proof. 
lie—" You still doubt me ? Put my love to the proof : 
shall I tight with wild beasts, travel among savages, 
go to the North Pole, or descend into a volcano ? 
Everything, everything will I dare !" 
She— That's right ! fio straight to Papa and ask him 
for my hand !" 
A. M. Ferguson. 
I'.riLIHNG MATERIALS IN CEYLON. 
The habitations of the lower classes of natives are 
formed of a rude framework of stout bamboos, the 
sides and roofs consist of reeds, closed in with the 
interwoven leaves of the coconut palm, the latter 
being washed over with the slimy juice of a native 
fruit, which, when dry, resembles copal varnish. In 
the huts built of " wattle and dab," the framework 
is made of roughly squared jungle trees, the space be- 
tween being filled, and both the inside and the outside 
of the hut being covered, with clay and sand wellkneaded, 
afterwards plastered over with earth thrown up by 
the white ants, mixed with a powerful binding 
substance produced by the ants. Superior houses 
arc built of '! cabook," a soft kind of rock, found 
at a few feot below the surface. This material 
has the appearauce of a coarse sponge, the interstices 
being tilled with soft clay. Before being used the 
blocks should bo exposed to the rain, to allow some 
of the clay to be washed out. Cabook requires to 
be protected from the weather, but if covered with 
a Uim coating of lime plaster it will last for years. 
Hard kinds of stone are not much used owing to 
the expense of working them, and rubble masonry 
ia apt approved, as there is difficulty in obtaining 
even buds and good bond. Bricks as a rule are so 
badly burnt and the clay is so badly pugged that 
brickwork in exposed situations and unprotected will 
perish very rapidly. It is advisable that it should 
in all cases bo well plastered with lime mortar. Two 
or three coats of boiled linseed oil will preserve 
brickwork without hiding it, but the expense prevents 
its general uso. Coal tar is an excellent preservative, 
but on account of its unsightly appearance it cannot 
bo often employed. Lime is generally made by 
calcining white coral. When taken from the kiln it 
is in a tiuo white powder lit for immediate 
use, after being mixed with twice its own bulk 
of sand and water. It sets so rapidly that 
in the Public Works Department it is the 
practice to keep the lime under water for two days 
before using it. This has the effect of making it 
longer in setting, but it is more easily worked and 
eventually makes better work, equal in fact to the 
best blue lias lime. Well-seasoned timber, with free 
ventilation, will endure for many years if the white 
ants are kept away, without any precautions being 
taken to preserve it. In exposed situations and where 
subject to the attacks of the white ant, Stockholm 
tar is the best preservative, while creosoted timber 
is free from their ravages. In sea water and even 
in fresh water lakes and canals, timber is speedily 
attacked by worms, notwithstanding that it is painted 
oiled, or tarred. Iron exposed to the influence of 
the varying weather speedily oxidises, but oil applied 
hot is a good preventive. Coal tar is, however, the 
best covering applied either cold or hot, or before 
or after oxidation has commenced. Ordinary galvan- 
ised sheetiron does not last many years unless pro- 
tected with good red lead paint frequently renewed, 
but zinc will last for many years with little or no 
decay. — Builders' Reporter, Dec. 26th. 
PHCEBUS AND THE MICROBES : 
THE WHOLE ART OF BACTERIOGRAPHV BY 
VII OKESSOR MARSHALL, WARD. 
Professor Marshall Ward in his Sunday lecture 
at Langham-place yesterday afternoon gave some 
interesting facts as to the bactericidal effects of 
sunshine upon the great microbe family. Science 
has suspected for some years that Nature never 
intended the bacteria to have things all their own 
way, without providing some check on their sur- 
prising powers of multiplication. Messrs. Downes 
and Blunt as far back as 1877-8 found out that of 
two tubes taken and filled with water swarming with 
bacteria spores, that kept in the dark exhibits most 
rapid growth. The organisms exposed to direct 
sunshine scarcely increase at all. In later years 
Professor Marshall Ward and other investigators 
have gone into the matter fully, and achieved some 
startling results. The bacteriologist generally 
cultivates his germs in a species of nutrient gela- 
tine. At this time of day everybody knows that 
these minute organisms are to be found widespread 
over the face of Nature, but not everybody has a true 
conception how really minute they are and howrapidly 
they multiply. One of the largest species— the bacte- 
rium of the anthrax disease — is only one twelve thousand 
five hundredth of an inch in length, and you could put 
500 millions of them in a drop of water the size of a 
pin's head. A single spore in twelve hours under 
favourable conditions will gradually elongate into a 
continuous thread — like a chain of microscopic sausa- 
ges—fully 100,000,000 times the length of the parent 
germ. This, of course, is only the case when 
grown under favourable conditions, that is to 
say, with plenty of nutriment, gentle warmth, 
and in darkness. It has now be in abundantly 
proved that sunlight, either direct or diffused, 
checks this growth, and if strong enough stops it 
altogether by killing off the spores. Professor Ward 
has devised a picturesque way of demonstrating 
this. He infuses his spores thickly and evenly 
in "agar " jelly, spreads a thin layer over a glass 
plate just like a photographer uses a thin film of 
sensitised collodion. And, curious as it may seem, 
the microbic jelly makes an excellent sensitive plate 
to print on by means of light. You may cover it 
up with a stencil-plate in which a design is cut out 
— say "Typhoid" — and after five or six hours' ex- 
pn,nre the word will be found standing out in bright 
white letters on a dark ground. The dark ground 
represents millions of colonies of microbes which 
have come to life and waxed fat on the jelly under 
shelter of the dark plate. The white letters mark 
where the daylight has come in and slain all the 
spores under its influence, leaving the clear jelly 
unstained with the evidences of bacterial life. It is 
