VARIETIES. 
469 
Arrow  Boot — It  is  stated  that  the  arrow-root  crop  of  the  Bermudas  is  an 
almost  complete  failure,  in  consequence  of  the  severity  of  last  winter.  We 
hope  that  this  fact  will  induce  greater  attention  to  the  culture  of  this  popu- 
lar and  most  useful  fecula  in  Georgia  and  Florida,  where  it  has  been  raised 
in  small  quantities  for  some  time  past.  It  is  most  desirable  that  we  should 
be  dependent  on  foreign  sources  for  as  few  as  possible  of  the  articles  of  the 
materia  medica,  and  the  domestication  of  the  large  number  of  foreign  arti- 
cles which  can  be  profitably  cultivated  on  our  own  soil,  is  a  subject  deser- 
ving the  consideration,  not  only  of  pharmaceutists,  but  of  agriculturists 
and  political  economists  also. —  Virginia  Medical  Journal. 
On  Chinese  Alum*. — About  eleven  hundred  tons  of  alum  have  been  ex- 
ported [from  Ningpo]  within  a  short  period,  chiefly  to  India.  This  mine- 
ral is  largely  employed  by  the  Chinese  in  dyeing,  and  to  some  extent  in 
paper-making  as  with  us.  Surgeons  apply  it  variously  after  depriving  it 
of  its  water  of  crystallization,  and  in  domestic  life  it  is  used  for  precipita- 
ting vegetable  substance  suspended  in  potable  water.  It  is  used  also  by 
the  Chinese  in  a  manner  peculiar  to  themselves.  Fishermen  are  usually 
provided  with  it,  and  when  they  take  one  of  those  huge  thizostoma,  which 
abound  on  the  coast,  they  rub  the  animal  with  the  pulverized  styptic  to 
give  a  degree  of  coherence  to  the  gelatinous  mass.  Architects  employ  it  as 
a  cement  in  those  airy  bridges  which  span  the  watercourses.  It  is  poured  in 
a  molten  state  into  the  interstices  of  the  stones,  and  in  structures  not  ex- 
posed to  constant  moisture,  the  cohesion  is  perfect,  but  in  damp  situations 
it  becomes  a  hydrate  and  crumbles,  a  fact  of  which  the  whole  empire  was 
officially  informed  by  the  government,  about  thirty  years  ago.  It  was  dis- 
covered that  water  had  percolated  into  the  mausoleum  of  Kiaking,  having 
been  built  too  near  the  mountain-side,  the  alum  cement  imbibed  moisture, 
segregated  and  opened  the  way  for  water  to  enter  the  tomb.  In  those  peaceful 
days,  such  an  event  was  of  such  importance  as  to  call  forth  edicts  and  re- 
scripts, memorials  and  reports  in  succession  for  several  months.  The  son- 
in-law  of  the  deceased  monarch,  to  whose  care  the  construction  of  the  edi- 
fice had  been  entrusted,  was  fined  and  degraded,  and  a  statesman  from  Foh- 
Kien,  acquainted  with  the  properties  of  alum,  was  appointed  to  remove  it 
a  short  distance  from  the  mountain. 
Alum  was  first  introduced  into  China  from  the  West,  and  until  a  com- 
paratively recent  period,  the  best  kind,  called  sometimes  Persian,  and  at 
others,  Roman  alum,  was  brought  from  Western  Asia.  Numerous  locali- 
ties, where  an  inferior  article  is  manufactured,  are  mentioned  in  the  Phar- 
macopoeia, viz.,  Shan-tung,  Shan-se,  Kiangsu,  Hu-kwang,  Sz'-chuen,  also 
in  the  south-western  frontier  and  in  Tibet.  That  from  Sz'-chuen  is  repre- 
sented as  having  the  property  of  converting  iron  into  copper,  or  of  coating 
*  Dr.  Macgowan's  Chinese  Serial  (published  at  Ningpo,)  quoted  in  the  North 
China  Herald,  Feb.  23,  185G. 
