Mr. Fontana likewise observes, that this poison does not act on animals of cold blood. This poison hinders likewise the coagulation of the blood from those killed by it; but if introduced into the blood by the jugular vein, it produces death; and that it does not act on the nerves, but only on the blood.

[Phil. Trans. Pantolog.

SECTION IX.

Bohan, or Bohan-upas.

JAVA appears to be possessed of various trees, the juices of which are fatally poisonous. These vegetable poisons, in the language of the country are called upases. In the first section of the present chapter we have noticed the destructive power of two of these upases-the upas tienté and the upus antiar. The tree named bohar, concerning which we have hitherto received no systematic description, produces a upas, or vegetable poison, of a still more active nature. Its effects indeed have been very unnecessarily exaggerated by many writers, but they are truly marvellous in the plain unvarnished fact.

The best and most satisfactory description we have hitherto received of the bohan tree, and its extraordinary and fatal secretion, has been communicated by M. Delille, a translation of whose paper in English was read in June, 1810, before the fellows of the Royal Society. M. Delille is a French physician, a member of the Na. tional Institute of Egypt, and transmitted this paper from the East Indies to the Royal Society, by means of an English lady. The botanical account of this poisonous plant he received from one of the French naturalists who accompanied Capt. Baudin, and who resided some time in Java; where he visited the interior of the country, and with much difficulty succeeded in prevailing on the natives to show him the different poison-plants, which they carefully conceal in order to use them during war. Hence the reason of so many fables as have been repeated respecting the extraordinary destructiveness and influence of the upas, which in the language of the Javanese signifies vegetable poison, and is applied only to the juice of the bohan tree, and another twisted-stemmed plant.

The bohan is a large tree, which this writer considers a new genus: the other plant, yielding an equally powerful poison, is of the wood bine genus. The upas, or poisonous juice, is extracted by an incision in the bark with a knife, and carefully collected and preserved by the natives to be used in their wars. As to its diffusing noxious effluvia in the atmosphere, and destroying all vegetation around it, the absurdity of these stories is best exposed by the fact, that the climbing species requires the support of other plants to attain its usual growth. Dr. Delille made several experiments with the upas on dogs and cats. An incision was made in the thigh of a dog, and eight grains of upas dropped into it: shortly after the dog began to vomit, and continued vomiting at intervals, till he became convulsed, the muscles of his head greatly distorted, and he died in twenty minutes. Six grains were put into the thigh of another dog, which also vomited first his undigested food, next a white foam, and died, contracted and convulsed, in fifteen minutes. A cat was also treated in like manner; but she was still sooner and more convulsed, and her muscles contracted: she continued leap. ing up for a few minutes, and fell down dead. All these animals died crying and in great agony. After repeating a number of experiments on the deleterious and prompt effects of this powerful poison, when applied externally, the author gave a grain and a half to a dog, which he took into his stomach, but it only produced a slight purging. To another four grains were given, which in about four hours produced both vomiting and purging, and the dog died in the course of half a day. On examining the bodies of these animals after death, no very extraordinary appearances were discovered; the ventricles of the heart were full of blood, and some slight traces of inflammation appeared in the stomach; but the derangement was not so great as might have been expected from such a violent and sudden death. From this circumstance, the author concluded that the absorbents had transmitted the poison to the nerves of the stomach, and that this peculiar vegetable poi. son acts exclusively on the nerves.

Messrs. Majendie and Delille have communicated to the class their experiments made on animals by means of the matter with which the natives of the Isles of Java and of Borneo poison their

arrows.

M. Vauquelin has also made some experiments of this kind: at the end of his chemical analysis of the juice of the belladonna, he speaks of the effects of this substance on animals. Those which he forced to swallow it, fell down as if intoxicated, in a delirium pre cisely similar to that produced by opium.

M. Sage has reported on the same subject some more experiments, which chance threw in his way, or which he collected from others, and which confirm the action of this juice on the nervous system, and particularly on the brain.

A young practitioner in medicine, whose name has been mentioned in former annual reports, M, Nysten, has attempted to ascer tain the effects of different gases injected into the blood-vessels of animals: he used the greater part of the gases with which we are acquainted. Atmospheric air, oxygen gas, the oxidulated azotic, carbonic acid, carbonic, phosphuretted and hydrogenated gases, &c. are in no respect deleterious. The oxy. muriatic, nitrous acid, and ammoniacal gases, seem to act by very violently irritating the right auricle and the pulmonary ventricle. The sulphuretted hydrogen, oxide of azote, and azotic gases, injure the contractile power of these parts: others also change the nature of the blood so com. pletely, that respiration can no longer convert it from venous blood into arterial, &c.

[Mem. de St. Instit. Nat. 1809.

CHAP. VI.

PLANTS CURIOUS OR USEFUL IN THE ARTS.

SECTION I.

Kadsi, or Paper-tree of Japan.

Morus Papyrifera.-LINN.

THE Morus or Mulberry genus contains seven species, mostly na

tives of hot climates. Of these two are of great use in the arts: Morus tinctoria, or fustic-wood, a fine American timber tree afford. ing a principal ingredient in most of our yellow dyes, for which purpose this material is an extensive object of commerce; and morus papyrifera, or kadsi of Japan, from which the ingenious na. tives manufacture their beautiful and glossy paper. This tree is also found in Otaheite and others of the Australasian or South Sea Islands, where the bark is spun into the finest sort of cloth. It has of late years been propagated from seeds in France, and in a sandy soil, is said to thrive better than the common mulberry. Like the last, its leaves are also an excellent food for the silk-worms.

The following is the process pursued in Japan for converting the bark of the kadsi into paper. Every year, when the leaves of the paper-tree fall off, the young shoots are cut into sticks about three feet long, and being tied up in bundles are boiled with water till the bark shrinks from the wood. The sticks are then exposed to the air till they grow cold, and being slit open length-ways, the bark is taken off, dried, and carefully preserved. Afterward, being soaked in water till it is soft, it is scraped, and the stronger bark, which is a full year's growth, is separated from the thinner, which covered the younger branches, the former yielding the best and whitest paper. The bark being then cleansed from all knots and impurities, is boiled in clear lye, and constantly stirred about till it becomes so tender, that on being slightly touched, it will separate into small fibres. The bark thus softened is washed in a river in sieves, and constantly stirred about with the hands, till it is diluted into a soft delicate wooly substance, and then put upon a thick, smooth, wooden table,

to be beat with sticks till it resembles the pulp of soaked paper. The bark thus prepared is put into a narrow tub, with the slimy infusion of rice, and the infusion of the oreni root, which is also slimy and mucous; which being mixed into an uniform liquid substance, by stirring it with a thin reed, the sheets are formed one by one, by taking up this liquid substance in a proper mould made of bulrushes instead of wire, carefully laid one upon another, on a table covered with a double mat, while a small piece of reed is put between every sheet; which standing out a little, serves in time to lift them up conveniently, and take them off singly. Every heap is covered with a small board of the same shape and size with the paper, on which are laid weights, which are at first small ones, lest the sheets, which are as yet wet and tender, should be pressed together into one lump; but by degrees are added more and heavier, to squeeze out the water. The next day the weights are taken off, and the sheets lifted up one by one, and with the palm of the band clapt to long planks, and exposed to the sun: when fully dry, they are taken off, laid up in heaps, pared round, and then kept for use or sale.

[Seba. Kampfer. Amænitates.

SECTION 11.

Cotton-plant.

Gossipium.

THIS genus produces ten species of trees, shrubs, or herbaceous plants; a few of them natives of America, but by far the greater number of Asia.

Most of these afford a wool that may be usefully applied to me. chanical or domestic purposes, or woven into cloths. The cotton shrubs of the American islands grow without the smallest cultiva tion, but their wool is coarse and short, and hence cannot easily be spun; if imported into Europe it might answer the purpose of felts in the manufacture of hats; but it is generally consumed by the inhabitants themselves, as stuffing for pillows and mattresses.

The generality of the West India species are annuals; but G. arboreum of India is a perennial tree, both in root and branch, rising in a straight line about eight feet high, with leaves in five palmate lobes: the lobes lanceolate, obtuse, and mucronate.

The cotton chiefly selected for propagation is G. herbaceum, a