430 THE TROPlOta. feC!?!'€5lSLTOmST. [December i, 189T. 
daring the current year, therefore, in order to keep 
pace with the demand, should be at le&st 4,000 lb.; but 
Mr. LawsoD has made no estimate The price of the 
drug, it may be mentioned, baa fallen from K16-7-9 
to R14-11-3 per lb. 1,050 lb. of febrifuge were made 
during the year, and this, and 400 lb, in h>ind at the 
beginning of the year, has been iasaed in indeutB to 
the Medical Stores Department in Madras and 
Bombay. 
Begarding the condition of the qijiniue sent to 
Oeylon, the Medical Superintendent of the Medical 
Stores, Colombo, said that its appearance was very 
much against it, aud aeked that futnre supplies might 
be better crystalised.* Unless this point was attended 
to, it oould, he said, never compete with Howard and 
Sons, or other weil-koown, quiniuR. Mr. Lawson 
denies that the crystallisation was bad ; in i act, he 
Bays it was really very good, the bad appearance of the 
qninice being due to its having been partially dried 
by pressure instead of by absorption, and that the 
crystals thus became broken up. On receipt of 
the Medical Superintendent's letter an offer was 
made to take all the quinine back and t" eeud 
in its place an equal amount of better lookSn^^ 
stuff, but the Superintendent said he would >iot du this, 
he only hoped that for the future a better looking sort 
of quinine would bo sent. This seema to havi' been 
done, for since his remonstrance no further complaint 
on the mattei- has been reoeived. The actual receipts 
of the Nilgiri plantations during last year amounted to 
K28,87(5, against a revised estimate of 1140,000, but if 
credit be taken for the quinine and bark issued during 
the year, of which the value was not realised before 
its close, the receipts are raised to K30,529; end if the 
value of the stock in hand at the end of the year be 
also iiicluued at the rates prevailing during the year 
the figure comes to R73,555. The net result of the 
operations, taking the last figures, show that there was 
a debit balance at the end of the year of R4,832. 
Bince the commencement of planting operations in 
1860 there has been a deficit of 211 lakhs of rupees ; the 
value of bark supplied to the quinologist for experi- 
mental purposes, and that of quinine and febrifuge 
sold has amounted to a little over one lakh ; the value 
of bark sent to England or supplied to other Govern- 
ments or departments has amounted to close upon 32 
lakhs of rupees, while the sales of plants, seeds, etc., 
has brought in a revenue of 1175,381. The total expen- 
diture during the past thirty years has been 35-86 lakhs, 
and the total receipts 33-75 lakhs. — Madras Mail. 
♦ 
SACKED TBEES OF THE WORLD. 
The Palm, the Oak and the Ash are tho three trees 
which since times immemorial were held lo be sacred 
trees. The first among them, which figures on the 
oldest morinments and pictures of the Egyptians and 
Assyrians, is the Date-palm {Phosnix dactylifera), 
which was the symbol of the world and of creation, 
and the fruit of which filled the faithful with divine 
strength and prepared them for the pleasures of 
immortality. " Honor," said Mohammed, " thy pater- 
nal aant, the Date-palm, for in Paradise it was cre- 
ated out of the same dust of the ground." Another 
Mohammedan tradition of a later period says thfit 
when Adam left Paradise lie was allowed to take 
with him three things — a Myrtle, because it was the 
moat lovely and the most scented flower of the e>*,rtb ; 
a Wheat-ear, beoauso it had most nourishment, and 
B Date, because it is the most glorious frnit oE the 
earth. The data from Paradise was, in some mar- 
volone way, brought to the Hejaz ; from it have 
come all the Date-palms in the world and Allah 
destined it to be the food to all tho true believerij, 
who shall conquer every country where the Date- 
palm grows. The Jews and the Arabs, again, looked 
upon the same tree as a mystical allegory of human 
beings, for, like them, it dies when its head (tho 
summit) is cut off, and when a limb (branch) is once 
* A spaoimen received by us from Dr. King, of 
quiniue manufactured by Mr. Gammie, was as pare 
as Howard's.— Ed, T. A. 
cut off it does not grow again. T^iose who know, 
can '"understand t he myatarious language of the 
branches on days when there is no wind, when 
whispers of present aud future avrnts are communi- 
cated by the tree. Abraham of old, so the rabbis 
say, nudestand the language of the Palm. The Oak 
was always considered a " holy " tree by our own 
ancestors, and, above all, by the nations of the 
north of Europa. When Winifred of Devonshire 
(680-754 A. D.) went fort!: on bis wanderings through 
Germany to preach the. Qoippl, one of his first 
actions was to out down the giant Oak, in Saxony 
which was dedicated to Thor at d worshipped b> the 
people from far and near. Bot when he bad aearly 
felled the Oak, and while the people were cursing 
and threatei iiig the saint, a sapernatural storro swept 
over it, seized the summit, broke every brtno;;, ts,nd 
d;-shed it, "quaei enperni motus soUiis," with a 
tremendous crash to the ground. The bokthons 
acknowledged the marvel, and many of tbea? were 
oonverteiJ there end then. But the eaint biilii. a 
chapel of the wood of this very Oak and Cidieiied 
it .o Sv. Peier. 
luB si.ore 1 Oaks, i> must be admitted, do not 
seem to i ave alwH*" done vheir duty. Thus, for 
instauoe, a famou ' Oik in Ireland was dedioaftd to 
the Irish Saint Co umban, one of Ihc peculir.rities 
of the tree being th whoever corried a piece of 
its wood in his mouth w iuld nuver be haiiged. 
After a time.however.the holy Oak of Kenmare ws^o des- 
troyed in a storm. Nobody dared gather the wco'^ czoopt 
a gardener, who tanned some shoe leather with (he 
barli ; but when be wore the shoes made of this 'eaiher 
for the first time he became a leper and wab Lsver 
cured. In the Abbey of Vetron, in Brittany, ilood 
an old Oak-tree which had grown out of the staff 
of St. Martin, the first abbot of the monastery, and 
in the shade of which the princes of Brittany 
prayed whenever they went into the abbey. Nobody 
dared to pick even a leaf from this tree, and not 
even the birds dared to peck at it. Not so. the 
Norman pirates, two of whom climbed the tree of 
St. Martin to out wood for their bows. Both of 
them fell down and broke their necks. The Celts 
and Germans and Soandinavians, again, worshipped 
the Mountain. Ash, and it is especially in the reli- 
gions myths of the latter that the " Asker Yggdrasil " 
playa a prominent part. To them it was the holiest 
among trees, the " world tree " which, eternally 
young and dewy, represented heaven, earth and hell. 
According to the Bdda, the Ash Yggdrasil was an 
evergreen tree. A specimen of it (says Adam of 
Bremen) grew at Upsala in front of the great temple, 
and another in Dithmarschcn, carefully guarded by a 
railing, for it was, in a mystisal way connected with 
the fate of the country. — Deutsche Hundschau. 
^ 
NOTES ON PRODUCE AND FINANCE. 
Sib Anubew Clark on Tea.— It was Sir Andifew 
Olark who tpoke against Indian tea the other day, 
and it was in the conrse of a lecture to the stadenta 
of the London Hospital that he delivered himself of 
the opinion that Indian tea was espeoially bad for 
nerves. This is what he said : — " Tea ia a blessed 
beverage. I do not know what 1 should do without 
it. But there ia tea and tea ; and one of the ieas which 
I have in my mind ii5 thej^representation of all that 
is pbysiologioaily wicked. I go about town a good 
deal, holding oonsultatious here and thbce, and'about 
five o'clock when I get into a place the lady of the 
house will e^y to me, "Sir Andre>v, you look so tired, 
do lob me give you a cup of tea.' I say, ' Thank 
you very muoh.' But the tea has Btood for half-an- 
hour ; and she remarks, ' I know you do not like it 
strong, Sir Andrew,' and then she puts about a 
tablespoonful of tea into the cup, and fills it up 
with water. Now, I call it positively cruelty to give 
tea like that to anybody, and I hopt) you gentlemen 
will always set your face against .^aeh a beverage. 
Tea to bo useful should bo, first of all, blaok China 
tea— the Indian tea which is being cultivated has 
become bo powerful ia its effect upon the nervous 
