980 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[June 1, 1872. 
The few known specimens which existed were valued at 
an enormous price till, in 1745, the discovery of the 
Seychelles Archipelago made known the habitat and 
nature of this singular production. Three of the islands 
composing* the archipelago—Praslin, Cunense, and lie 
Ronde—were covered with magnificent forests of this 
unique palm, and their soil strewed with its huge and 
singularly shaped nuts. The value of their shells as 
domestic utensils for various purposes was at once per¬ 
ceived, and from that time to the present they have 
supplied to the inhabitants the place of baskets, bowls, 
jars, dishes, measures for grain and liquids, drinking 
vessels, paint-pots, etc. The trees are fast being de¬ 
stroyed. On lie Ronde not a plant remains. Cunense 
has a considerable number of fine young trees. At 
Praslin a great many have been destroyed by fire, and 
there are not, perhaps, a score of trees in the other 
islands. This palm is of very slow growth, for the trunk 
does not show itself till twenty or twenty-five years 
after the germination of the seed, and then it takes four¬ 
teen or fifteen years before it blossoms.* 
I have no recent statistics of the trade in these nuts ; j 
but in 1859, 3,310 of these were exported, valued at 
£831, and 11,800 lobes or cups made of them, valued at 
£590. Although they have now lost much of their tra¬ 
ditional repute, they are still held in such estimation by 
the negroes and poor people of other islands, that sailors 
always try to bring away some in their vessels. When 
preserved Avhole, and perforated in one or two places, 
the shell serves to carry water, and two of them are sus¬ 
pended from opposite ends of a stick. Some of these 
nuts hold six or eight pints. If divided in two between 
the lobes, each portion serves, according to its size and 
shape, for plates and dishes, or drinking-cups, these being 
valued, like calabashes, for their strength and durability. 
A fixed oil (called Manteiga de Assahay) is extracted 
by decoction from the fruit of the Euterpe oleracca palm, 
which abounds in Para. The oil is of a greenish colour, 
slightly bitter, and used for lighting and other purposes. 
The pulp of the fruit of the Aoura palm, of Guiana 
(Astrocargum vulcjare) , yields an oil which is used for many 
different purposes. A yellowish, bitter oil, used for soap¬ 
making in Brazil, is obtained by decoction and expression 
from the fruit of Sagus taediga , which is abundant in 
Para. 
Prom the nuts of Enocar pus bacaba , a palm also abun¬ 
dant in Brazil, an oil of a clear green colour is obtained, 
which, when purified, is used for lighting and culinary 
purposes. Prom the fruit of other species— O. pataua and 
O. distich a —fluid oils, clear, yellow, and transparent, are 
obtained, which, when purified, are inodorous, and used 
in cooking in place of olive oil. 
There are two or three species of Car&pa , the nuts of 
which yield a fixed oil. Crab oil of Guiana is from the 
Carapa guianensis. It is extremely bitter, but used ex¬ 
ternally lor the hair and for soap-making. It is abun¬ 
dant in Para, where it is known as andiroba oil. The 
nuts are so common in some of the districts of French 
Guiana that, when they are ripe, the soil is covered at 
least a foot dceji with them for many hundreds of yards. 
That of Africa, known as mote grease, from mote or 
kundoo nuts, is from the Carapa talicoonah or touloucouna , 
which yields 33 per cent. It yields 70 per cent, of oil. 
I have here a pomade alleged to be made "with this oil, 
and said to be used by the Past Indians for beautifying, 
softening, and increasing the growth of their hair, and 
which, according to the label, has wonderful properties; 
but it is to be regretted that intelligent pharmaceutical 
chemists should not have known, after figuring and 
labelling the plant with its scientific name, that Guiana 
is not in the East Indies, and that the oil is not likely to 
be carried 'and used there when an allied indigenous 
species, Xglocarpus granatum, is to be met with. 
(To ho continued.) 
Mr. George Clarke, in ‘Anna's and Magazine of Natural 
History.’ 
|)itrliamentiir]i anti fato proceedings. 
The Shipping op Benzine. 
The following letter in reference to the report of a 
case heard at the Thames Police Court, which we last 
week quoted from the Daily News , has been addressed 
to that journal by Messrs. Curling, of St. Mary Axe :— 
“ In your impression of Wednesday, in the report of tho 
proceedings against our firm, for shipping a case of ben¬ 
zine without notifying its contents, it is stated in error 
that the case shipped and containing benzine had been 
described on the outside as ‘ Patent Medicine.’ We beg 
to state that the goods were not shipped for our account, 
that the words ‘ Patent Medicine ’ were not written oil 
the case, and that the consignee’s mark and number ‘ P. 
II. and Co., 721,’ were tho only marks upon it. Tho 
omission of the word benzine, complained of by the dock 
company, arose from accident only; But the alleged 
false representation of the contents of the case as being 
‘Patent Medicine’ (given in the report) obliges us to 
request a correction of the latter statement, as it is 
calculated to injure us, and is without the slightest 
foundation.” 
The Student’s Pocket Companion* to the British 
and London Pharmacopoeias of 1851 and 1867, 
comprising the Formulae of both Pharmacopoeias in 
Parallel Lines, an Abbreviated Materia Mediea, Tables, 
etc., with a Medico-Botanical Map. By George 
Barber, Pharmaceutical Chemist. Sixth Edition. 
London : Philip and Son, and Simpkin, Marshall and 
Co. 1872. 
The usual result when a “ pocket companion” has 
arrived at the dignity of a sixth edition is that it ceases 
to be adapted to any other pocket than that of an 
“ Ulster” great coat, or of a prestidigitateur. So many 
temptations to improvement, so many additions that 
might he useful, present themselves, and it is so necessary 
to keep abreast of the time with new information, that 
the compiler requires to exercise considerable discrimi¬ 
nation in culling the choicest only, or his work will soon 
belie its original name One proof at least of the fitness 
of the compiler of the work now lying before us is to bo 
found in the fact that, while it contains far more matter, 
it would really take less room in the pocket than tho 
third edition. This is due to the ingenuity with which 
every part of the book is made use of, even to tho apo¬ 
plectic-looking title-page. 
One feature of this little volume is that in almost every 
section the subjects are arranged in what might bo 
termed a “graphic” manner. The arrangement of the- 
P. L. and P. B. formulae in parallel columns, which en¬ 
ables the mind more readily" to compare differences and 
to associate them together, is characteristic of the plan of 
tabulating information which is acted on throughout. 
Some of the sections that appear for the first time in 
this edition will prove very useful and interesting. On 
the inside of the cover at the commencement of the book 
is one of Mr. Bellow’s ingeniously contrived concentric 
calculators* for the conversion of grams into grains, and 
at the end is one for the conversion of litres into fluid 
ounces, drachms and minims. There is also a “ phar¬ 
maceutical or medico-botanical map of the world,” in 
which the names of the articles of the materia mediea 
yielded by a district are set down after the fashion of tho 
names of towns in ordinary maps. As far as it goes, this 
picturesque way of teaching materia mediea, although 
not new, is interesting ; and it is curious to notice how* 
in a few spots—Central America and the West Indies, 
India and the Eastern Archipelago—the names cluster 
unusually thick. There are one or two points, however, 
that, without being hypercritical, might be objected to. 
See Pharm. Journ., 3rd ser. Vol. 1. p. 396 
