June 1, 1901.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
811 
might be looked upon as the perfectiou state, which 
the biua, yellow, and purple varieties of corundum 
have not reached. 
We know that the rnby was the most highly-prized 
of all pern? at the pavijd of tha Renaissance, for 
Cellini, in his " Orifi'iana," ref^riug co the relativa 
valoas of precious 9tone<<, gives l.h^ v^ilue of a c i^at 
ruby as m^iit times that of dianDnd, and 80 times 
that of a sapphire of the s <,m0 weight. 
Many are the tales of im.neusa and magnificent 
rubies seen by travellers of old to the Courts of 
Asia. As these writers generally describe not only 
what they saw, but what they had described to them, 
it is wise to take many of their statements with the 
proverbial grain of salt. We fin. 1, for instance, " allu- 
sions to a ruby of porfeot qnality as large as n, hsu's 
9gg, which was worn as aii ear.drop by the Kiig of 
Ada." Even Tavernier, iu his " I'ravels" abhO'igh 
imparting much valuable icformation about the gem- 
producing countries visited by hiai, and the customs 
and hibitaof the inhabitants, of ten taxes our credu- 
lity with regard to the gems he describes. But I 
think we may place reliance upou his account of a 
fine ruby in the possession of the King of Vishnpoor, 
which he describes as being almost triangul-xr in 
shape, of a most vivid red colour, and of about 50 
carats in weight. 
In a curious old book, published in the 14th cen- 
tury, Sir John Mandeville describes a ruby and a 
carbuncle half a foot iu length, which possessed the 
property of self-luminosity. These marvellous gems 
were seen by him at the court of the great Chan of 
Cathay. Some of the most notable gems iu the 
Royal and Imperial regalias of Europe are rubies, 
ftnd will be described in a chapter dealing with the 
historic 'interest connected with them. Besides 
these there are several magnifioent rubies which 
have from time to time appeared upon the market 
either from the mines of Burmah or, which is more 
generally the case, from the treasury of an Eastern 
potentate. Often these gems, which, perhaps, have 
been worn for hundreds of generations of their 
Royal owners, or formed part of the splendour of 
idol or Buddha, are parted with to relieve some 
financial crisis of the Court. 
Two orudely-cut rubies of superb quality came to 
light in this wav in the year 1875. They weighed 
respectively 37^ and 47 carats in the native-cut state, 
bat after recutting in London the smaller stone 
weighed 32 5-16, and the larger one 38^ carats. The 
smaller ruby was a cushion-shaped stone of a fine 
rich colour, and eventually fetched the enormous 
sum of £10,000. The other stone, although of a 
somewhat awkward drop shape, was of such ex- 
quisite quality that nearly double this amount was 
realised. The larger of these beautiful gems is now 
in the possession of a Russian count, while the 
smaller belongs to a well-known American million- 
aire. 
Ruby is seldom selected as an object for carving 
or engraving upon, chiefly owing to the extremo 
hardness of the stone. The great intrinsic value of 
this gem also makes it an unsuitable material for 
the purpose, as the artistic conception of design and 
execution of workmanship should claim the first 
consideration with these works of art, Oacassionally, 
however, to meet the requirements of some wealthy 
client, the gem engraver of all periods has used the 
ruby as a foundation upon whicn to work intagli and 
oamei. 
It must be said that among engraved gems of au- 
thentic antiquity precious stones of all kinds are ex- 
tremely rare, as productions of the most famous 
glyptic artists of ancient Greece were executed upon 
material selected as most suitable for displaying to 
the g Gitest advantage the inimitable genius of the 
period for cameo and intaglio, and as most suitable 
for giving a true impression when used as a seal. 
A full face of a Bacchante, crowned with ivy, forms 
the subject of the most beautiful antique intaglio upon 
ruby known to conaoisseure. The exquisite treat- 
ment of the flesh and hair, as well as the half-devilish 
expression of the couutenance, denote the work of an 
artist of the first rank, Emhn by name, at the period 
wh.?n Greek glyptic art was at its height. 
Other examples of the u;e of ruhy by r„ncion- Greek 
artists are the heai of Hercules upon a srcali stoue 
of pale colour iu a very bold, effective style, and a 
m vgnifiient hoad of Thetis upon a pentagonal ruby 
of irregular shape. The lutter subject is treated 
in a masterly way, depicting Thetis weiring the shell 
of a huge crab iu place of a h ilmet. Both these iatagli 
have the lieads eugraved en profile. 
In regard to engraved rubies and other preciona 
stones, it is generally tho case that careful aoLUtiny 
will show th^ presence of some flaw or other impar- 
fectioa within the gem, which it has been the nbj of 
he giyptic c.rtist to pi.rfcially hide.— TA/; llinUg Jour- 
nal, Hailuiay and Covvaercial Gazette. 
THE FORMATION OF ALKA.LOIDS IN 
CINCHONA TREES. 
The objective of the extensive system of cinchona 
cultivation now prevailing iu India, Java, aud other 
tropical counsries, is the production of cinchona bark 
containing the largest possible amount of alk Uoids since 
it is to the presence of the latter substances that the bark 
owes its useful properties. At various times methods 
of increasing the yield of alkaloid have been 
suggested, such as shading the stems of the trees 
from the direct action of the sun, but these have 
been, as a rule, ba,sed on pr|oonceived motions of 
the role played by the alkaloid in the life history 
of the tree, and were not the result of any real 
investigation of the conditions under which these 
bodies are produced by the plant. 
This defect has now been remedied by the results 
obtained by Dr. Lotsy, of the Java Cinchona 
Gardeus, in the course of a series of inveS'.igiti.)ns 
into the mode of formation and the occurrence of 
alkaloids in two species of cinchona, viz., succii-ubra 
and ledgeriana. Several papers giving an account .md 
this work have appeared iu Dutch periodicals, ai;d 
recently a resume in English has been published in 
the Bulletin de V Tastitut Botanique d* Buitenzorg 
(No. 3, 1900), from which the following particulars 
have been taken. 
In commencing his work the author subjected 
each part of the tree in turn to micro-chemical 
examiuation for the presence of the characteristie 
cinchona alkaloids, and, as a result, was able to 
demonstrate the existence of these substances in 
certain cells of every portion of the plant. Thus, 
in the leaves no alkaloid occurs in the epidermal 
layer of cells, or in the veins, but the fleshy part 
of the leaf invariably contains in its constituent 
cells a certain amount of alkaloid. In a similar 
manner, the stem, even in its earliest stages, con- 
tains alkaloid, but only in the inner layers, never 
in the epidermis or in the large wood vessels found 
in adult trees. In the root a precisely similar con- 
dition of things is found, and so also in the petals 
and other parts of the flowers. In general it may ba 
stated that the alkaloid occurs only iu the tissue 
known to botanists as the hypodernia, i.e., in the 
part of the plant where the building-up and break- 
ing-down processes which constitute plant metab .lism 
are most active. In the youngest parts of the plant, 
such as the tip of the stem and umier the rooij c^y, 
where no differentiation into tissues has begun, no 
alkaloid is found. 
These observations afford an explanation of the 
phenomenon that the first bark obtained from a 
cinchona tree is always richer thiin that of succeeding 
crops. This is due to the fact that the bark first 
formed is produced by the drying up of hypodernial 
tissue, of which each cell contains alkaloids ; while 
the secondary bark produced by continued activity 
of the cork cambium contains, in addition to 
hypodermal cells, bast fibres which contain no 
alkaloid. ■ . 
