after it has been freed from the hair as before mentioned, with this decoction; and then put it into the pot with the myrobalans and water for three days. This is a good colour, and for many purposes the skins are well dressed. The hides of oxen and buffaloes are dressed as follows: For each skin take 2 seers (11lb.) of quick-lime, and 5 or 6 seers measure (about 1 ale gallon) of water; and in this mixture keep the skins for eight days, and rub off the hair. Then for each skin take ten seers, by weight, (about 6 lb.) of the unpeeled sticks of the tayngadu (cassia auriculata), and 10 seers measure of water (about 24 ale galions), and in this infusion keep the skins for four days. For an equal length of time, add the same quantity of tayagadu and water. Then wash, and dry the skins in the sun, stretching them out with pegs. This leather is very bad. The oil-makers at Bangalore are a very considerable class of people, and are of the kind that use two bullocks in their mill, of which a drawing is given (Plate VIII *). The mortar is a block of granite. This class of people are called Jotyphanada, or Jotynagarada Ganagarn. They express the following kinds of oil: wull'-ella, huts'-ellu, harulu, cubri, ipay, and hoingay. The wall-ellu oil is expressed from two varieties or species of sesamum seed, called here surugana and cari elius. They are the same with the wallay and phulagana ellus of Seringapatam. The first gives the least oil; but for the table it is esteemed the best of any in the country: the price, however, of the two kinds is the same. The mill receives at one time about seventy seers measure (2,1% Winchester bushels) of sesamum seed; and, in the course of grinding, ten Cucha seers measure of water (27% ale quarts) are gradually added. The grinding continues for six hours, * A, A, (Fig. 1 and 2) the mortar, 3 feet 6 inches outside measure from a to b. The inside cavity is 2 feet wide. The height from the ground to the top of the mortar is 6 feet 9 inches from the ground, and the block of which it is made descends into the earth 6 feet 9 inches. The pestle B, B, is 5 feet 1 inch in length. The cross handle of the pestle C, is 3 feet 7 inches long, by which, with the help of a cord, the pestle is attached to the post D, 4 feet 8 inches long, fastened into the beam E, F, which measures 12 feet from E to G, and 5 feet 6 inches from G to F. when when the farinaceous parts of the seed, and the water, form a cake; and this having been removed, the oil is found clean and pure in the bottom of the mortar, from whence it is taken by a cup. Seventy Pucka seers (2,4% Win, chester bushels) of surugana, or 65 seers of cari-ellu seed (2 Winchester bushels), give 2 Cucha maunds (rather more than 5 ale gallons) of oil. The mill requires the labour of two men and four oxen, and grinds twice a day. The oxen are fed entirely on straw, and are allowed none of the cake; which is sometimes dressed with greens and fruits into curry, and at others given to milch cattle. The huts'-ellu is managed exactly in the same manner as the sesamum. The seventy seers measure require a little more water than the other ellu, and give 65 seers of oil (or a little more than 4 gallons). This also is used for the table. The cake is never used for curry, but is commonly given to milch cattle. The harulu, or castor oil, is made indifferently from either the large or small varieties of the ricinus. It is the common lamp oil of the country, and is also used in medicine. The oil made by boiling is only for family use; all that is made for sale is expressed in the mill. To form the cake, seventy seers of the seed require only five seers, Cucha measure (19 ale quarts), of water, and give 60 seers (4 ale gallons) of oil; which, after being taken out of the mill, must be boiled for hålf an hour, and then strained through a cloth. The cake is used as fuel. Cobri oil is that made from the dried kernel of the cocoanut, which is called cobri. This oil is chiefly used for anointing the hair and skin. Cakes are also fried in it, and it is sometimes used for the lamp. The mill receives 6 maunds weight of the cobri (almost 93 lb.), and 11 Cucha seers measure of water (a little more than 3 ale quarts). This produces three maunds (about 7 ale gallons) of oil. The natives eat the cake dressed in various ways. The ipay oil, made from the fruit of the bassia longifolia, is used for the lamps burned before the gods, being esteemed of a better quality than that of the ricinus. The mill takes 70 seers 70 seers measure, and the seed requires to be moistened with 12 Cucha seers (34 ale quarts) of tamarind water, in which 2 seers of tamarinds have been infused. The produce rs 70 seers (436 ale gallons) of oil. The cake is used as soap to wash oil out of the hair of those who anoint themselves. The hoingay oil, produced from the seed of the robinia mitis, is used for the lamp; but it consumes very quickly. It is also used externally in many diseases. Take 70 seers, Pucca measure, of the seed freed from the pods, add 4 Cucha şeers measure of water (1 ale quart), and beat them in a mortar into a paste. Then tread the paste with the feet; and, having kept it for two or three days, dry it in the sun. It is then put into the mill with one Cucha seer (19% cubical inches) of water. It produces 40 seers (23 ale gallons) of oil. For fuel, the cake is mixed with cow-dung. The English weight, to which all the native weights are reduced, is the pound avoirdupois. LXII. Description of the Bermuda Islands, and particularly the Island of St. George. Addressed to the Directors of the French Museum of Natural History, by M. A. F. MICHAUX, temporary Agent of the French Imperial Administration of Woods and Forests in North America*. I EMBARKED at Bourdeaux on the 5th of February, 1806, for the United States; my voyage having for its object to collect and transmit to the administration in the department of woods and forests, a great quantity of seeds and plants of such forest trees as might be naturalized in France, or succeed in those uncultivated districts where our own indigenous trees refuse to grow. On the 23d of March the American vessel, on board of which I was, fell in with the Leander, an English man-of-war, commanded by captain Whitby, who, suspecting our cargo to belong to French merchants, sent the ship to Halifax, in Nova Scotia. I From Annales du Musíum d'Histoire Naturelle, tome viii. p. 356. was was the only one of all the passengers who was ordered on board the Leander, where I remained for 43 days, during which time the cruize lasted. This disagreeable event removed me more than 600 leagues from Charlestown; but it gave me an opportunity of visiting the Bermuda Islands, where the Leander anchored on the 7th of April, to take in water. We remained there eight days, and I obtained permission from captain Whitby (who always treated me with the utmost politeness) to go on shore frequently: upon these visits I made the observations I am about to communicate *. The number of islands composing the Archipelago of the Bermudas is so considerable, that the inhabitants say they are equal to the days of the year. The largest are only from 12 to 13 miles long. The smallest look like lime rocks just rising above the surface of the sea. The whole occupies an extent of about 35 miles in length by 20 or 25 broad. Towards the north immense strata of rocks extend from 30 to 40 miles, rendering the approach of vessels dangerous. These islands, although much lower than the Azores, present nearly the same appearance at a distance, and resemble long and high ridges of hillocks covered with a darkish verdure. They are not surrounded by a flat and sandy beach like the Floridas, but skirted by high rocks, against which the waves are continually breaking. The island near which the English ships of war generally anchor is called St. George's, which is also the name of the chief town. The town of Hamilton is in another island, fifteen miles off; these two are the only towns in the Bermudas. There are no houses so close together in any other place as to entitle them even to the name of villages. St. George's island is situated at the north end of the Archipelago, and it was the only one on which I landed. It is of the second class in point of size, being nine miles long by three broad in some places, and only a quarter of a mile in others. The straights, which separate its southern shores from the islands of St. David, form the harbour, and * M. Michaux was humancly released at Halifax, by captain Whitby, and proceeded to New York.-French Editor. it's entrance is strongly barricadoed by the projecting point of another island. It is edged round with blackish rocks, varying in height from 5 to 25 feet. When viewed at a distance, these rocks resemble a long hillock, the inequalities in which constitute so many small valleys. Upon the heights the soil is dry and sandy, and frequently the bare rock is seen in the low grounds, on the contrary, the earth is a brown clay slightly moistened, and its vigorous vegetation announces its extreme fertility. Three fourths of the island are covered with wood; the rest is partly cultivated, or so barren that it is not susceptible of cultivation. The plants peculiar to the island are few in number: and although my journeys through the island were very rapid, I think I may safely affirm that the number of species does not exceed 140 or 150. Among these plants we find seves ral belonging to the antient continent, which do not seem to have been of a nature to occasion them to be transplanted here these are, the verbascum thapsus, anagallis arvensis, mercurialis annua, leontodon taraxacum, plantago major, urtica urens, gentiana nana, oxalis acetosella, &c.. We also find here the great cabbage palm tree, chamærops palmeto, and the rhus toxicodendrum of North America. to other plants, I could only ascertain a small number of them; but I collected seeds of all those which had been preserved the year before, among others a strawberry plant, the aromatic flowers of which resemble sage, and it is on this account called sage-bush by the inhabitants; a beautiful species of verbena, and a small medicago, each foot of which scarcely occupies an inch of ground; this is the most common plant in the country, forming almost the whole of the verdure every where; the surface of the ground not being, as in Europe and the United States, covered chiefly with the grasses, of which last there are very few kinds in the Bermudas. The juniperus Bermudiana, called by the inhabitants cedar, is the only forest tree in these islands: the whole are nearly covered with them; and it is this tree which, when seen in clumps at a distance, gives a dull and sombre ap pearance |