342 
ON GUARANA. 
Pavon;) other Indian Sapindaceae have excellent fruit, [Eu- 
phoria, Dimocarpus, Nephelium, &c.) It would be interest- 
ing to ascertain if their seeds contain cafeine, although this 
family has no botanical relations with that of the Coffeaceae or 
Rubiaceae. The true species of Paullinia and Serjania are 
American. 
To prepare the guarana, the cleansed seeds are pounded in 
a mortar, they are then roasted upon an earthen plate, as ca- 
cao. The powder thus obtained, is moistened with water, and 
left during a night. The seeds of the Paullinia, coarsely 
bruised, are also mixed with it. This soft mass is made into 
cylinders or cakes pointed at both ends, eight inches long, or 
formed into boluses or loaves, with a neck, weighing a pound 
or more. These are dried in the sun, and better still by the 
smoke of a fire, suspended to the roofs of the huts of these 
people. In this way they harden and become black. The in- 
ternal portion also becomes brown with time, as I have seen 
in numerous specimens.* 
The guarana can be preserved for several years ; the Guar- 
anis envelope them in the leaves of the Scitamineae, (Maranta, 
Canna, &c.,) and preserve them in baskets without their alter- 
ing, when kept from moisture. The specific weight is 1.294 
to 1.355; it swells and softens in water, which dissolves apart 
of it. The blackish-brown color of the guarana, its odor and 
taste, present some resemblance to the paste of the cacao, but 
without being oily. The acerb taste resembles that of rhatany, 
but with feeble bitterness. The fracture is conchoidal, cleft 
by the retraction of the parts, with brilliant fragments, which 
are blackish and prominent, by the side of irregular cavi- 
ties. 
The Indians rasp, in their journeys, the guarana, which 
they constantly take with them, by means of the rough bone 
of a large fresh water fish, Sudis gigas (the vastres of Cuvier.) 
This they unite with sugar and water, and the drink is anti- 
febrile and refreshing. 
*I am much indebted to M. Dechastelus, pharmacien of Paris, who has 
received this substance from Brazil in large quantities. 
