288 
SAGO * 
In most parts of the Indian Archipelago two*kinds of 
alluvial soil are found in greater or less abundance, one con¬ 
sisting chiefly of sand often thrown up in long banks, and the 
other chiefly of decomposed vegetable matter. The latter is 
often a consequence of the production of the former, which 
serves to keep out the waves of the sea, and allow a rank 
vegetation to flourish. In process of time by the elevation of 
the surface, and the extension of a similar formation seaward, 
the older marshes are no longer subject to tidal invasion, and 
become gradually filled up by the decay of fresh water plants. 
For these tw T o descriptions of soil nature has provided two 
kinds of palm adapted in a wonderful manner to the necessi¬ 
ties of man. On the barren sand she has planted the cocoanut, 
and in the morass the sago tree. 
It is to the latter that we wish to direct attention, because 
in our immediate neighbourhood, along the immense alluvial 
tract of the Sumatra coast from Siak to the Lampongs, and 
in the large plains of the rivers of the Peninsula such as those 
of Rio Formosa and the Muar, there are hundreds of miles of 
sago land unoccupied and unproductive, every acre of which is 
capable of yielding at the rate of about twenty thousand pounds 
of meal yearly. 
The sago tree is found, in ore or other of its species, 
throughout the whole length of the Archipelago, from the is¬ 
lands off the west coast of Sumatra to New Guinea. It is 
probably capable of flourishing with complete vigour across 
nearly its entire breadth wherever its natural soil occurs, and 
certainly within ten degrees north and south of the equator, 
a band which includes all the Archipelago save the Phillip- 
pines. The only countries however where it is found growing 
in large forests are New Guinea, the Moluccas, Celebes, 
Mindanao, Borneo, and Sumatra, being widely spread over 
the Moluccas, but confined to particular parts of the others. 
The sago does not appear to be indigenous in Sumatra and 
the Peninsula, which is perhaps the reason why it is little used 
• The following paper is composed chiefly—1st, of an account of the mode of 
cultivating and using the sago in the Moluccas which we have translated from the 
Dutch of M. de Steurs (Tijdschrift. Neerl. Ind. 8th year, 3d. part, p. 367) 
adding to it some notices from Yaleotyu and Forrest. 2d, of an account of the 
cultivation of sago in Sumatra and the earlier statistics of its manufacture in 
Singapore, extracted from a paper in one of the early numbers of the Singapore 
Chronicle, the contents of which we have obtained permission to use for this 
Journal. To these we have added, 3rd, an account of the mode of preparing 
the Pearl Sago of commerce by the Chinese manufacturers of Singapore at the 
presents day and of the Singapore sago trade,J 
