store for several years, yields about 2 oz. of light oil, and 5 oz. of heavy oil.

The prepared bark of the laurus cinnamomum has received a variety of appellations. It has, however, been chiefly known by the terms casia and cinnamon. The derivation of neither of these terms is well ascertained. It has been asserted that the term casia, joined with the Hebrew word khenah (which signifies a pipe), is the original of what has been rendered cinnamon in the 30th chapter of Exodus, and that the word rendered casia by our translators is kiddah, from khadh, to split or divide longways. We read in Herodotus that casia grew in Arabia, but that cinnamon was brought thither by birds from the country where Bacchus was born, that is, India. The term used by Herodotus to specify the last of these substances indicates the cinnamon we now have, for it signifies the rind separated from a plant,* and evidently points out the bark, under which form we still receive this spice.

Galen was of opinion that casia and kinnamomum were the produce of different species of plants. He, however, finds great difficulty in marking the distinctions. He says that cinnamon resembles the best casia; and avows that they are so much alike that it is not an easy matter to distinguish them.

The cinnamon mentioned by Galen appears to have been small shoots or branches, which were sold wood and bark together, xylo casia, casia lignea.

The ancients enumerate a variety of sorts of casia. Some of the terms employed to denominate this spice specify the mart, or port, where it was to be found; some a particular character, or quality; the origin and import of others are undetermined. Ten different sorts are mentioned in the Periplus:-1. Mosylitick, from Mossylon, a port to which it was brought. 2. Gisi; small, esteemed the best. 3. Ordinary. 4. Aroma; sweet-scented. 5. Mayla.

* Vincent's Periplus of the Erythrean Sea.-The extreme ignorance of the ancients respecting cinnamon may be guessed by the account Herodotus has given of the manner casia and cinnamon were collected. He tells us that casia grows in a shallow lake; and that round the borders of this lake there are a number of winged animals resembling bats, which are very strong, and utter the most piercing and dismal cries. The Arabs take great care to defend their eyes from the attacks of these animals, and drive them away: after this precaution, they collect the casia. Cinnamon is collected in a still more surprising manner. The Arabs them selves do not know from whence it comes, nor the country which produces it. Some people assert that it grows in the country where Bacchus was born; and their opinion is supported by strongly probable circumstances. They relate that some very large birds collect quantities of the sprigs and small branches of the plant which we call cinnamon, a name we have borrowed from the Phenicians. These birds construct their nests with the cinnamon twigs upon mountains inaccessible to man. To procure the cinnamon twigs, it is asserted that the inhabitants of the country adopt the following artifice. They take the dead carcasses of bullocks, asses, or carrion of any kind, and cut it into large pieces, which they place near to the situation where these birds have constructed their nests. The birds immediately pounce upon this prey, and bear it to their nests, which are not in general strong enough to support this load; the fabric divides; and the pieces of cinnamon fall down, are collected, and eventually exported into foreign countries.

6. Molo; both unknown. 7. Sclerotera; hard. 8. Duaka. 9. Kitta. 10. Dacar: all unknown. The two leading species of this spice appear to be the casia fistula, pipe cinnamon, and casia lignea, the tender unbarked shoots. Cinnamon, according to Dr. Vincent, is in a number of languages specified by a term which signifies a pipe, or is accompanied with a qualitive bearing this import. Khinemon besem (Hebrew); casia syrinx (Greek); casia fistula (Latin). Many of the modern languages omit the substantive, casia, and specify cinnamon by the conditional adjunct of the ancients. Canella (Italian), from canna (Latin), a reed; cannelle (French); kaneel (Dutch); caneel (Danish); canel (Swedish); canela (Spanish); canella (Portuguese); kanehl (German).

The word casia is by modern authors used in a variety of senses; but as they do not always define it, or explain the specific nature of the substance they intend to describe, it is often difficult to know in what sense they have adopted the term, or to comprehend the nature of the article concerning which they have been writing.

This makes the subject extremely embarrassing. It is, however, very generally used in one or other of the three following meanings. 1. To denote the prepared bark of the laurus casia. 2. To specify the cinnamon procured from thick shoots, or large branches, of the cinnamon-tree, employing it as synonymous with the appellation coarse cinnamon. 3. To denominate the produce of the laurus cinnamomum found in various countries, and to distinguish it from the cinnamon produced in Ceylon.

With regard to the first specification, it is sufficient to mention that laurus casia, dawul kurundu, has been already described, and the distinction between it and the laurus cinnamomum pointed out. It is never decorticated. As to the second, it is well known that the rejected cinnnamon, or third sort of that prepared in Ceylon, has been imported into England, and sold under the denomination of casia.*

The third specification seems to be founded in a supposition that the laurus cinnamomum found out of Ceylon is not equal to that which is produced in this island.

The cinnamon plant abounds in various parts of the world; and we have the assertion of people apparently well able to judge, that the cinnamon produced in some of these places is equal to the finest prepared in Ceylon.

Cinnamon seems to be confined to the torrid zone; at least we have no good authority for supposing that it is found much beyond it. Spielman says it is found in Tartary; and many authors have asserted that it grows in China. Spielman's assertion is not supported by any authority which I have seen; and Sir G. Staunton

The true cinnamon, such as we at present receive, is the produce of young shoots of the cinnamon-tree; and that which we call casia is the prepared bark of old branches of the same kind of trees. Casia is harder, and more woody, than cinnamon. The ancients made use of this quality of cinnamon bark, but we at present reject it. (See French Encyclopedia, Art. CINNAMOME.)

tells us that, with the exception of the camphor-tree, none of the laurel genus grows in China. Osbeck does not include it in his Flora Sinensis.

*

Cinnamon abounds on the Malabar coast; the island of Sumatra, particularly about the Bay of Tapanooly; † Cochin China; Tonquin, where it is an article of Royal monopoly; the Sooloo; § Archipelago; Borneo; Timor; the Nicobar and Philippine islands; || the island of Floris; ** and Tobago. ++ It has been cultivated in the Brazils, the isles of Bourbon and Mauritius, the Sichelle islands, Guadaloupe, Jamaica, and the northern Circars, §§ the island of Du Prince | on the east coast of Africa. The cinnamon plant was introduced into Guiana, in the year 1772, from the Isle of France; subsequently it was transported into the Antilles. In Guiana the inhabitants cultivate it in their gardens, and round their cottages. They prepare cinnamon sufficient for domestic purposes, and transmit a small quantity to France. ***

Prior to the year 1790 it was introduced into Cayenne by the French Government at a very great expense, and recommended to be cultivated by the colonists. +++ Père Labat is of opinion that the bois d' Inde of the French West India Islands is the same species of plant with the laurus cinnamomum.

The etymology of the terms cinnamon and casia is not very evident. We are informed by Ribeiro that the Portuguese historians derive the first from the Chinese word sin-ha mama, which is said to mean the foot of a pigeon. This derivation is not satisfactory.

To investigate the origin of a term employed to specify an article of commerce, it is particularly necessary to examine the language of the inhabitants of the countries which produce it, and of the merchants and seamen who trade in the commodity. The consumer very generally adopts the term given to a substance by its cultivator. Sometimes the term employed implies the country of the people who are its importers. It has been asserted that the Chinese were very early and extensive traders in the Indian seas; and

* Nieuhoff, Rheede, Dr. Buchanan, &c. &c. &c.

+ Marsden's Sumatra, Eschelskroon.

Loureiro Flora Cochin Chinensis, Abbe Rochon's Voyage to Madagascar, &c. &c. Pinkerton.

§ Dalrymple,

Ribeiro's Account of Ceylon, De la Harpe's Collection of Voyages. **Nieuhoff.

++ Postle waite's Commercial Dictionary.

Jerome de Merolia's Voyage to Congo; Ribeiro.

§§ Dr. Forster, Dr. Wright, and Dr. Dancer. In 1785 there were 3000 cinnamon-trees of Ceylon in the Isle of France. (See a Report by M. Ceré, the Superintendant of the Botanical Garden.)

Les Portugais ont planté quelques cannelliers tirés des Indes Orientales dans l'Isle du Prince, sur la coté d'Afrique, ou ils se trouvent maintenant en abondance, et se sont etendue sur une grande parti de l'isle. (See Laurier, French Encyclopedia.)

*** Memoir by L. C. Richard in the Memoirs of the French Institute.

+++ Report by Jussieu and Desfontaines in the same work. Cinnamon has been successfully cultivated in the island of Dominica by a Mr. Buée. The same Gentleman has succeeded in propagating the clove-tree in Dominica.

Ribeiro, on the authority of the Portuguese historians, states that they imported spices into Ormus, and other ports in the Arabian Gulph. He tells us, also, that the Arabians give the appellation of dar Chini Seylane (the China wood of Ceylon) to the cinnamon produced in Ceylon; while they apply the term kerfah to the cinnamon produced on the coast of Malabar, and other countries.

The Persian appellation for this commodity is dar Chini. The Hindoostannee term for it is dar Chinie. This term might have been applied in consequence of the Chinese importing cinnamon into distant ports; or perhaps, more probably, from merely supplying the merchants with it when they arrived at any of the ports of China. Cinnamon was for a long time imported into Europe under the appellation of China wood.

Herodotus tells us that the term used by him to specify cinnamon was adopted by the Greeks from the Phenicians. Their country, however, did not produce cinnamon; but as they were industrious merchants, and extensive navigators, they may have imported it from the countries where it grew, either in their own ships, or in those of other nations. "Traders from the Arabian coast had probably in all ages frequented the eastern seas, although no record of their voyages of an earlier date than the ninth century has been preserved."*

In Cochin China the cinnamon plant is termed cay quc. The Chinese appear to have adopted this term, but in some degree modified; they call it kuei chau, which, when pronounced by a native of China, sounds like the word qui shen or qui chou: chou in the Chinese language signifies a tree. That the term employed by the Chinese to specify cinnamon has a foreign derivation, is extremely probable; as it appears that cinnamon is not indigenous in China. It appears very probable that the term casia has been derived from either the Cochin Chinese or Malay languages. †

The Malays specify cinnamon by the term kayu manis (sweet wood). Marsden renders it kulet manis (sweet bark or rind), which may be the appellation employed by the higher classes. The vulgar, however, term it kayu manis. There is a considerable consonance in the pronunciation of the terms casia, cay, and kayu, all indicative of the same substance.

The Malays were in early ages an active, enterprizing, and commercial people. Their language is very generally employed in the

* Marsden's Introduction to a Grammar of the Malay Languages.

+ Valentyn derives the term casia from Casia, the name of an island in the Persian Gulph, which was for a long period a depot for the productions of India. Here the merchants from Europe found cinnamon, which, according to this author, was by the physicians termed casia lignea (casia wood). According to Dodoneus, Galen once saw a branch of a tree, one end of which yielded cinnamon, and the other casia. The same author informs us that Theophrastus and Pliny confidently believed that casia and cinnamon were the produce of the same species of plants, and that whatever difference existed between them, they supposed arose from the circumstance of the former being procured from trees which grow on the hills, and the latter from those which grow in the valleys.

districts bordering on the sea coasts of the islands of the eastern Archipelago, the Malay peninsula, Sumatra, Java, &c. These countries abound with cinnamon, which the Malays exported probably in their own ships, or furnished the merchants of other countries with it, in the ports of the districts where it is found most abundant. This they now do; and foreigners would very probably adopt the Malay term for the article; and by this means, through a succession of traders, the Phenicians, and eventually the Greeks, may have received the terms casia and cinnamon. Casia is not improbably a corruption, or foreign pronunciation, of the Malay term kayu (wood), omitting the qualitive adjunct manis (sweet); and the kinamon of the Greeks may be derived from kayu manis, altered by incorrect pronunciation, or erroneous transcription. The vowel yin kayu has the power of a consonant, and in this word has a soft nasal sound, resembling in no inconsiderable degree the usual enuntiation of the letter s in casia. Orally the Malays frequently confound the sounds of the vowels o, u, and a. They often pronounce the term kayu manis as if it were written kaynomanis or kainamanis, which terms do not differ materially from the ancient kinnamon, or the modern cinnamon, either in the letters, or in the mode of utterance and they certainly specify the same substance. It is worthy of observation that Moses employs the term sweet (manis) cin

namon.

Plate LXXI. Fig. 1, exhibits the Laurus Casia with ripe berries. The Cingalese designate this plant by three different namesDawul Kurundu, Nika Dawulu, and Nika Kurundu.

Fig. 2 is a traced outline of Burman's 28th Plate, which is a. delineation of the Kurundu Gaha, or Cinnamon-tree, in a state of florescence. Burman has erroneously stated this to be a print of the Dawul Kurundu of the Cingalese.

ARTICLE II.

Suggestions for building experimental Vessels for the Improvement of the Navy, with Remarks on the present Mode of Construction, and some Experiments on the comparative Resistance of Water on differently shaped Solids. By Col. Beaufoy, F.R.S.

(To Dr. Thomson.)

MY DEAR SIR, Bushey Heath, Stanmore, July 22, 1817. Ir is reasonable to suppose that in a maritime country like the United Kingdom of Great Britain any endeavour to promote the science of naval architecture will meet with a candid and favourable