M Y R I 
dam, near the admiralty, a fire, the fuel of which was 
valued at 8,000,000 of livres; and as much was to be 
burned the day following. The feet of the fpeftators 
were bathed in the efiential oil of thefe fubftances; but 
no perfon was allowed to gather any of it, much lefs to 
take any of the fpices which were in the fire. Some years 
before, upon a fimilar occafion, and at the fame place, a 
poor man who had taken up fome nutmegs which had 
rolled out of the fire, was, as M. Bomare was informed, 
feized and condemned to immediate execution. But, 
olotwithftanding the jealoufy of the Dutch, and the pains 
they take to preferve the fale of cloves wholly to them- 
'felves, they have never been able to prevent their own 
officers, in feveral parts of India, from embezzling and 
felling confiderable quantities of them. M. de Jaucourt 
informs us, that, in order to defraud the company, they 
fell a part to the veffels of other nations which they meet 
at fea, and moiften the remainder with water, that they 
may Hill have the number of quintals of which their 
cargo confided. The quantity fold may amount to ten 
quintals in one hundred, before it can be perceived by the 
clerks of the magazines at Batavia, where they are received. 
Monf. Poivre, governor of the Ifie of France, fent per- 
fons, in June 1770, to the lead frequented part of the 
Moluccas, in fearch of what the avarice of the Dutch had 
hitherto withheld from the red of the world ; and to him 
the French colonies in the Ides of France and Bourbon 
are indebted for the nutmeg, clove, and cinnamon. By 
an account fent to Monf. de Sartines in 177.9, by the king 
of France’s gardener at the Idand of Bourbon, it appears 
that the royal garden there podeded at that time thirty- 
eight male aromatic nutmeg-trees, and eight females, the 
produce of two importations. The fird female, produced 
by the nuts of the fird importation, bore fix nutmegs the 
preceding year. Thefe were all of the long form, M. to- 
mentofa, our N° 4. and furrounded by the mace on all 
fides. Since that time a fecond and third female tree, 
produced by the nuts of the lad exportation, have yielded 
nuts of the fame long lhape a fourth tree ffiowed nuts 
which were very large, and likely to be of the long fort; 
a fifth yielded nuts one-third finaller; the mace went 
only half round them, leaving them at liberty to break 
from it: they were round, and had a longitudinal dripe 
on one fide. The gardener relates, that he had twenty- 
nine nutmeg-trees in his orchard-, of which two only 
were females: the cafe is the fame in other plantations, 
and all thefe males came from long nuts planted in 1772. 
It being probable that the woods in the Molucca-idands 
produce more of the trees which bear long nuts than of 
thofe which bear round ones, the natives probably gave 
-the former, and the merchants took them without fuf- 
pefting any fraud. It might therefore have happened, 
that not a fingle fruiting-tree of the true fort had been 
imported ; and in fadt there was not one fruiting-tree of 
the fird importation any-where but in the king’s garden, 
and that produced long nuts. So that, had not Monf. 
Poivre fent a fecond time to the Moluccas, the French 
colonies might never have had a fecond female tree. 
The gardener didinguidies the tree into three forts •. 
the male or barren nutmeg ; the royal nutmeg, or female 
producing the long nuts ; and the queen-nutmeg, yield¬ 
ing the precious round nuts, intended to reproduce the 
females, but which gives feparately, the one long nuts 
intended to give maies, the other round nuts intended to 
produce the two forts of females; namely, that producing 
the long, and that producing the round, nut. The only 
difference between the royal and queen nutmeg is in the 
fruit. That of the royal is thicker, longer, and more 
pointed ; the green ihell is thicker, and it is longer in ri¬ 
pening : the green ffiell, after opening, preferves its 
frelhnefs eight or nine days ; the mace is more fubftan- 
tial, and three or four times as long as that of the queen- 
nutmeg; and its ltripes or thongs, of which there are 
from fitteen to feventeen principal ones, are of a-livelier 
red; they are alfo broader, longer, and thicker, and not 
VOL. XVI. No. X125. 
S T 1 C A. 445 
only embrace the nut throughout its whole length, but 
pafs it and crofs under it, as if to hinder it from falling. 
The royal nutmeg is generally from fifteen to fixteen lines 
long, thick in proportion, and has.no longitudinal ftripe. 
It remains on the tree a long time after the opening of the 
green ffiell, and gives birth to infedts in the ffiell that feed 
upon it. The queen-nutmeg produces much fmaller nuts, 
only nine or ten lines long, not fo thick by a third, and 
well marked by a longitudinal groove on one fide; they 
are round, and refemble a fmall peach : the green ffiell is 
not thick : the mace, which is compofed of nine or ten 
principal ltripes, grows only half down the nut, leaving 
it at liberty to efcape and plant itfelf. By thus detaching 
itfelf, the nut prevents the infedts from deftroying it: the 
green Ihell alfo, changing at the end of two or three days, 
foon falls, and feparates from the nut. This green ffiell, 
when preferved, has the fine tafte of the nut itfelf. A 
fmall eftabliffiment for thefe fpices has alfo been formed 
by the French frnce 1769, on the Ifle of Secheyles, in lat. 
4. 38.S. 
The nutmeg-tree has been introduced into the Britilh 
territories in the Eaft Indies. Captain W. C. Lennon, of 
the Mary, acquaints Dr. Anderfon, at Madras, on the 
20th of Augult, 1796, that he had brought fafe from 
Amboyna and Banda, fome clove and nutmeg plants of 
the bell kinds, and that it was chiefly owing to Capt. Of- 
borne, of the Centurion, that he was enabled to bring 
them in fafety to Pulo Penang. He had on-board feven 
nutmeg and four clove trees, of which two of the former 
were planted at Madras ; the reft were fent to Marmalon, 
excepting two of the nutmeg-trees, which had been for¬ 
warded by captain Pakenham for Mr. Andrew Rofs. 
A premium has been offered by the Society of-Arts, 
Manufactures, and Commerce, of London, ever fince the 
year 1783, for the greateft quantity of merchantable nut¬ 
megs, not lefs than five pounds weight, the growth of our 
illands in the Weft Indies; but hitherto without fuccefs. 
Sir George Staunton relates, that a perfon belonging to 
theembaffy to China had a prefent, from the medical garden 
at Batavia, of a young growing nutmeg-plant, and of a nut 
fuppofed capable of germination ; that he committed them 
to the care of a gentleman bound for England, in order to 
be put in his majefty’s botanic garden at Kew ; but that 
the nutmeg-plant fuftered in the pafiage, and was left at 
St. Helena. Sir George fays that the nutmeg-tree, with 
a fmooth brown bark, riles perfedtly ftraight. Its ftroim- 
and numerous branches, proceed regularly in an oblique 
direction upwards. They bear large oval leaves pendu¬ 
lous from them, fome a foot in length ; the upper lurface 
fmooth, and of a deep agreeable green; the under lurface 
marked with a ftrong nerve along the middle, from which 
others proceed obliquely ; it is of a uniform bright brown 
colour, as if Itrewed all over with a fine brown powder; 
and the whole leaf is very fragrant. 
The genuine nutmeg-tree with round fruit, (Nux mof- 
chata frudtu. rotundo, of Bauhin and Plukenet,) is the 
fubjedt of the annexed Plate ; wherein a reprelents a fprig 
with the fructification ; the fruit of the natural fize, and 
•burlting open ; b, the full-grown fruit cut lengthways ; 
c, another fedtion of the fame; d, the nutmeg enveloped 
with its covering, the mace ; e, the fatty membrane, or 
mace, Ipread out; the nutmeg of its natural fize; g, 
-the fame with its external tegument removed at one end ■ 
k, the fame with its outer tegument entirely removed ; i 
a tranfverfe fedtion of the nutmeg. The feed or kernels* 
called nutmegs, are well known, as they have been long 
tiled both for culinary and medical purpofes. Diftilled 
with water, they yield a large quantity of efiential oil, re- 
fembling in flavour the Ipice itfelf; after the diftillatiou, 
an infipid febaceous matter is found fwimtning on the 
water; the decodtion, infpifiated, gives an extradt of an 
undtuous very-lightljr-bitterilh tafte, and with little or 
no aftringency. Redtified fpirit extradts the whole virtue 
of nutmegs by infufion, and elevates very little of it in 
diftillation •, lienee the fpirituous extradt pofiefies the fla- 
5 X your 
