SELECTED ARTICLES. 
which are transparent and very delicate, which in time are 
precipitated and are nothing more than the remains of the 
teguments. 
After what has been said it is easy to explain why white 
sago gives up to cold water a small quantity of amidine; it is 
because its tegumentary envelope, probably less resisting, 
more extensible and more permeable than in the other species 
of sago, permits the cold water to penetrate to the amidine 
contained in its granules and to issue from them sparingly 
charged with this principle. Cannot this property, adds M. 
Planche, be turned to advantage in preparing, at desire, a drink 
slightly amylaceous from the white sago of the Moluccas, the 
residue of which already saturated with water, will serve for 
nourishment? 
The memoir is concluded by some reflections upon factitious 
sago compared with exotic. The German is so friable that it 
breaks down between the fingers; that of Gentilly near Paris, 
has almost the hardness of genuine sago; but prepared as they 
are from the fecula of the potato, both retain a virose taste 
which betrays their origin, upon a delicate palate they bear the 
same relation to the rose-coloured and white sago, that the 
best wine of Suresne does to the wine of Volney. 
At the end of the memoir, of which a detailed extract has 
been presented, M. Planche has appended a note upon the 
substance extracted by M. Poiteau from the sago plant of 
Madagascar, cultivated in Cayenne and designated by the 
name of sago by this naturalist. This substance prepared by 
M. Poiteau himself, is of a brown colour almost as deep as 
chocolate, and is composed of grains three or four times larger 
than a pin's head, irregular, some of them perfectly pure, others 
in some portions adhering to vegetable fibre. It is obtained 
by scraping and washing in water the inner white portion of 
the young plants, then pressing it through linen to separate the 
liquid from the matter in suspension and drying it in the sun. 
M. Planche has examined this pretended sago; and upon 
a single inspection, it was easy for him to see that it had no 
analogy with the true sago. Tn fact, it exhibits a mixture of 
