408 
Proceedings of the Royal Society 
patronage of Mr John R. L’Amy, Justice of Peace for Forfarshire, 
in the character of a Kraken, three miles long, as seen at the 
statutory distance of about one mile by a credible master-mariner 
and his mate, off the east coast of Scotland, on 5th August 1786. 
This is all that the Society contributes before 1803 to the science 
of Zoology. 
Belonging to Botany there are only six papers, of which five 
possess interest. Dr James Anderson of Madras describes, in 1791, 
the Oldenlandia umbellata , from the root of which is obtained in 
India a valuable red dye-stuff. The Transactions for 1785-90 
contain an excellent paper, with illustrative drawings, by Dr 
Wright, Physician-General of the Army in Jamaica, on the 
Quassia simaruba of that island. The root of that species, now 
the Simaruba officinalis , was strongly recommended by him as a 
remedy for chronic dysentery, and has still great credit with many 
in the treatment of that disease. Dr Wright was the first to 
identify and accurately describe the tree, and did so in this paper, 
which was read in 1778 in the Philosophical Society, but was first 
published in the second volume of the Royal Society Transactions. 
In 1791, Mr John Lindsay, surgeon in Jamaica, communicates 
a paper connected with the subject of the last-mentioned inquiry, 
on the Quassia yolygama of Jamaica, describing the plant as a 
magnificent tree 100 feet high and 10 feet in girth, and re- 
presenting it to possess all the virtues of Quassia wood, the pro- 
duce of the Quassia amara of Surinam. He adds, he is credibly 
informed that the former is sold in London for the other. This is 
a curious fact, as fixing the time when the true Quassia wood of 
the Quassia amara of existing botanists was displaced in the mar- 
kets of Europe by the wood of Lindsay’s tree, the modern Picrcena 
excelsa , without either druggist or physician having noticed any 
difference in their virtues, or observed, until a few years ago, that 
the wood of a great forest tree had been substituted for that of a 
low bush about twelve feet in height. Different views may be 
taken of this apparent blindness of the medical profession. For 
my part, I recognise in the whole incident an interesting proof of 
the resemblance in action on the human body among different 
plants belonging to the same natural family. For the great tree 
of Jamaica, like the little bush of Surinam, is a powerful, simply- 
I 
