THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[August 3, 1872. 
81 
countries where they are hardy, and can he used 
irrespective of their medicinal importance, to beau¬ 
tify any rocky or otherwise arid spot and as hedge 
plants. 
Analysing the official customs returns and taking 
the imports through Egypt, Bombay and the East 
coast of Africa to he Socotrine and hepatic, the 
sources of supply were as follows in pounds:— 
Total receipts. 
Cape. 
Socotrine. 
Barbados. 
1867 ... 781,306 
630,688 
80,906 
58,202 
1868 ... 725,295 
534,108 
96,524 
69,013 
1869 ... 661,559 
1870 ... 701,573 
The deliveries for home use and export from the 
London warehouses in the past five years were as 
follows:— 
1867 
1868 
1869 
1870 
1871 
Cases. 
4317 
3505 
3451 
3092 
4346 
Kegs. 
138 
34 
26 
83 
19 
Gourds. 
1965 
1858 
918 
747 
804 
The stock on hand in London at the beginning of 
tins year consisted of 3538 cases, 98 kegs, and 607 
.gourds. 
Cape Aloes. — A.forox, Lamark, of South Africa, 
yields the best Cape aloes as observed by Dr. Pappe. 
A. purpuraseens, Haworth, is also one of the plants 
which furnishes the Cape aloes of commerce, and so 
does A. spicata, Linmeus, an exceedingly handsome 
plant. This species is very common in the Madras 
Peninsula. The drug of A. plicatilis , Miller, acts 
milder than that of A. for ox. According to Thun- 
berg, the finest gum-resin is obtained from A. linrjui- 
formis (or angulata) , Miller. A. Syheri, Harvey, a 
magnificent very tall species, is doubtless valuable 
like the rest. 
Dr. Pappe, in his ‘ Flora Capensis Medic® Pro- 
clromus, says the Cape aloes are procured from 
several species of this extensive genus so peculiar to 
South Africa. The Aloe ferox, Lam., a native of 
Swellandam is generally acknowledged to yield the 
best extiact. Tnat obtained from the Aloe afoicana, 
Miller, is also equalty good, but not so bitter nor so 
powerful as a drastic. It is the produce of the 
Eastern districts of the Cape Colony, whence lai ,<T e 
quantities aie annually exported. The dnm com¬ 
monly used by the colonists, is prepared from the 
Aloe plicatilis, Miller, whose extract is a much milder 
purgative, and much resembles the Barbados aloes. 
It inhabits the mountainous range near the Paarl 
Drakenstein and Fransclie Hoek. It is much to be 
legietted that the tanners do not take more trouble 
in purifying tliis valuable drug. 
Barbados Aloes is obtained from A. vulgaris, 
Lamark, A. barbadensis. Miller. It is met with in 
countries around the Mediterranean Sea, also the 
Canary Islands,. on the sandy or rocky coast. Dr. 
Sibthorpe identified this species with the Axon of 
Dioscorides, hence it is not improbable that A 
vulgaris is simultaneously also of American orimn 
although it is cultivated in the Antilles, and furnishes 
from thence the main supply of Barbados aloes. In 
the East Indies this species is also seemingly only 
existing in a cultivated state. Haworth found the 
leaves of this and of A. striata softer and more 
succulent than those of any other aloe. It is said 
to be the only species with yellow flowers among 
those early known. It is also tliis species only 
which Professor Willkolm and Professor Parlatore 
record as truly wild in Spain and Italy. Barbados 
aloes is chiefly sent iii gourds. 
Socotrine Aloes. — A. Socotrina, Lamark, is in¬ 
digenous to the hills of the island of Socotra. It is 
also cultivated in Barbados and elsewhere, thus 
yielding the Socotrine aloes. It is difficult to ascer¬ 
tain what is the precise produce of the island now. 
Our imports are so mixed up with the Indian aloes 
wliicli comes from Bombay and through Egypt, and 
from the east coast of Africa, that it is scarcely 
possible in the official returns to separate Indian and 
Socotrine produce. The Barbados and the Cape 
aloes used to be separated in the official trade re¬ 
turns, and all the eastern classed as Socotrine. Within 
the last year or two the Board of Trade officials 
have not thought it worth while, however, to classify 
the supplies, and we now only know the gross 
quantity received. 
The East Indian or Hepatic Aloe, so called 
from its bright liver colour, is said to be the produce 
of A. arabica, Lam. Some quantity used to be shipped 
from Madras chiefly to Bengal and Australia. It 
comes here in casks or kegs. In India an inferior 
description of aloes is obtained from A. indica, Boyle, 
and a better kind is procurable from A. litoralis , 
Koenig, which grows plentifully at Cape Comorin 
and the neighbourhood; it is readily distinguishable 
by the reddish colour of its leaves. The natives 
attach much value to the juice of the leaves, which 
they apply externally in cases of ophthalmia, and 
especially in what are commonly called country sore 
eyes. The mode of administering it is to wash the 
pulp of the leaves in cold water, and mix it up with 
a little burnt alum. In this state it is applied to 
the eyes, being previously wrapped in a piece of 
muslin cloth. 
IN A QUICKSILVER MINE. 
“Grace Greenwood,” who has been for some time 
travelling in the west of America, sends to the New 
York Times the following account of a recent visit to a 
quicksilver mine. 
“ It was a brilliant May morning when we set out 
from San Jose for the new Almaden Quicksilver Mine, 
some twelve miles away, in the Santa Cruz range of 
mountains, and on the Alamitos Creek. This quicksilver 
mine, the largest and richest in the world, with the ex¬ 
ception of the old Almaden in Spain, was first known to 
white men as long ago as 1824, worked awhile for silver 
and then for a long time abandoned. It is the most un¬ 
certain sort of mining, there being nothing like a regular 
vein of ore to follow, hut only in many places very slight 
threads connecting the ‘ ore-spots,’ while some' of the 
deposits are isolated, lying hidden slyly away in nature’s 
most secret drawers and dark pockets. The process of 
reducing the ore, of rousing the latent mercury from its 
sleep of a million or so of years, is very interesting and 
easy of comprehension, even to a woman, when patiently 
and pleasantly explained, as it was to us. It is simply 
burnt out of house and home, or its dull old hody perishes 
by cremation, that it may appear in a glorified form, to 
shine and serve in a thousand beautiful ways. It is 
compelled to awake and come forth, or as an old miner 
said, to ‘ get up and git,’ by intense and long-continued, 
heat. The oreys put into furnaces, each holding 15,000 lb. 
and having in one end the fire, which is kept up for 
about three days. The vapours from the heated ores 
pass from the furnaces through small apertures, like 
pigeon-holes, into condensing chambers, on the cool'walls 
of which the globules of mercury form and glide at once 
to the floor, where they collect in little gutters and flow 
