central cavity, sometimes nearly of an inch in diameter, which served as a dwelling for the insect, is lined with a thin hard shell. If the insect has perished while still very young, the central cavity and the aperture contain a mass of loose starchy cellular tissue, or its pulverulent remains if the insect has not been developed at all, the centre of the gall is entirely composed of this tissue.

Microscopic Structure-The cellular tissue of the gall is formed in the middle layer of large spherical cells with rather thick porous walls, becoming considerably smaller towards the circumference. The outermost rows are built up of cells having but a very small men and comparatively thick walls, so that they form a sort of rind. Here and there throughout the entire tissue, there occur isolated bundles of vessels which pass through the stalk into the gall. Towards the kernel, the parenchyme gradually passes into radially-extended, wider, thin-walled cells, the walls of which are marked with spiral striæ. The hard shell of the chamber1 is composed of larger, radially-extended, thick-walled cells, with beautifully stratified porous walls. On the inner side of this shell there are found, after the escape of the insect, the remains of the starchy tissue already mentioned, which originally filled the chamber and had been consumed by the insect as nourishment.

The parenchyme-cells outside the shell contain chlorophyll and tannin; the latter is in transparent, colourless, sharp-edged masses, insoluble in benzol, but dissolving slowly in water, quickly in alcohol. Thin slices soaked in glycerin appear after some time covered with beautiful crystals of gallic acid. The thick-walled cells (stone-cells) and the neighbouring striated cells, are rich in octahedra of calcium oxalate. The tissue of the gall situated within the shell of thick-walled cells contains starch in large, compressed, mostly spherical granules; also isolated masses of brown resin. Besides these, there appears to be in this part of the tissue an albuminoid compound.

Chemical Composition - The rough taste of galls is due to their chief constituent, Tannic or Gallo-tannic Acid, CHO, or CHOHCOOHO, the type of a numerous family of substances to which vegetables owe their astringent properties. Tannic matter was long supposed to be of one kind, namely that found in the oak gall, but the researches of later years have proved the tannin of different plants to possess distinctive characters: hence the term gallo-tannic acid to distinguish that of galls, from which it is principally derived. It was however shown by Stenhouse as far back as the year 1843, again in 1861, as well as by still more recent unpublished experiments, that the tannic acid found in Sicilian sumach, the leaves of Rhus Coriaria L., is identical with that of oak galls. Löwe in 1873 came to the same conclusion. The best oak galls yield of this acid, from 60 to 70 per cent.

Gallic Acid is also contained in galls ready-formed to the extent of about 3 per cent. Free sugar, resin, protein-substances, have also been found. Neither gum nor dextrin is present.

Commerce-The introduction into dyeing of new chemical sub1 Couche protectrice of Lacaze-Duthiers- -Ann. des Sciences Nat., Bot. xix. (1853) 273-354.

Recherches pour servir à l'histoire des galles.

stances, and the increased employment of sumach and myrobalans, have caused the trade in nutgalls to decline considerably during the last few The province of Aleppo which used to export annually 10,000 to 12,000 quintals, exported in 1871 only 3000 quintals. A staple market for the galls which are collected in the mountains of Kurdistan is Diarbekir, whence they are sent to Trebizond for shipment. Galls are also shipped in some quantity at Bussorah, Bagdad, Bushire, and Sinyrna.

There were imported into the United Kingdom from ports of Turkey and Persia during 1872, 6349 cwt. of galls, valued at £18,581.

Uses-Oak galls in their crude state are seldom used in medicine unless it be externally; but the tannic and gallic acids extracted from them are often administered.

Other kinds of Gall.

Chinese or Japanese Galls-The only kind of galls, besides those of the oak, which are of commercial importance. They are described at page 167.

Pistacia Galls-The genus Pistacia, which belongs to the same order as Rhus, is very liable to the attacks of Aphis, which produce upon its leaves and branches excrescences of exactly the same nature as Chinese galls. In the south of Europe, horn-like follicles, often several inches long, are frequently met with on the branches of Pistacia Terebinthus (page 165). These Galla vel Folliculi Pistacina, in Italian Carobbe di Giudea, were formerly used in medicine and in dyeing. They were noticed in 1555 by Belon, but already well known as early as the time of Theophrastus.

3

Another much smaller gall of different shape is formed (by the same insect?) on the ribs of the leaves of Pistacia Terebinthus; P. Lentiscus (page 161) affords also a similar small excrescence.

Again, another growth of the same character constitutes the small and very astringent galls known in the Indian bazaars by the names of Bazghanj and Gule-pistah, the latter signifying flower of pistachio; they have been termed in Europe Bokhara Galls. They were imported by sea into Bombay in the year 1872-73, to the extent of 184 cwt., chiefly from Sind; and are also carried into North-western India by way of Peshawar and by the Bolan Pass. Occasionally a package finds its way into a London drug sale.

Tamarisk Galls-These are roundish knotty excrescences of the size of a pea up to an inch in diameter, found in North-western India on the branches of Tamarix orientalis L., a large, quick-growing tree, common on saline soils. The galls are used in India in the place of oak galls, and are mentioned as "non-officinal" in the Pharmacopoeia of India, 1867 We are not aware that they have been the subject of any particular chemical research; their microscopic structure has been investigated by Vogl.5

1 Consul Skene-Reports of H.M. Consuls, No. 1. 1872. 270.

2 For a figure, see Pharm. Journ. iii. (1844)387. For the structure see Marchand, in the paper quoted at page 166, note 4, plate iii.

3 Analysis by Martius may be found in Liebig's Ann. d. Pharm. xxi. (1837) 179. 4 From the returns quoted at page 333,

note 3.

Zeitschrift des Oesterreichischen Apothekervereines, 1877. 14.

SANTALACEÆ.

LIGNUM SANTALI.

Lignum Santalinum album vel citrinum; Sandal Wood; F. Bois de Santal citrin; G. Weisses oder Gelbes Sandelholz.

Botanical Origin-Santalum album1 L., a small tree, 20 to 30 feet high, with a trunk 18 to 35 inches in girth, a native of the mountainous parts of the Indian peninsula, but especially of Mysore and parts of Coimbatore and North Canara, in the Madras Presidency; it grows in dry and open places, often in hedge-rows, not in forests. The same tree is also found in the islands of the Eastern Archipelago, notably of Sumba (otherwise called Chandane or Sandal-wood Island), and Timur.

In later times, sandal wood has been extensively collected in the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands, where its existence was first pointed out about the year 1778, from Santalum Freycinetianum Gaud. and S. pyrularium A. Gray;2 in the Viti or Fiji Islands from S. Yasi Seem.; in New Caledonia from S. austro-caledonicum, Vieill3; and in Western Australia from Fusanus spicatus Br. (Santalum spicatum DC., S. cygnorum Miq.). The mother plants of Japanese and West Indian sandal wood are not known to us.

In India the sandal-wood tree is protected by Government, and is the source of a profitable commerce. In other countries it has been left to itself, and has usually been extirpated, at least from all accessible places, within a few years of its discovery.

History Sandal wood, the Sanskrit name for which, Chandana, has passed into many of the languages of India, is mentioned in the Nirukta or writings of Yaska, the oldest Vedic commentary extant, written not later than the 5th century B.C. The wood is also referred to in the ancient Sanskrit epic poems, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, parts of which may be of nearly as early date.

The author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, written about the middle of the 1st century, enumerates sandal wood (Euλa rayaλíva) among the Indian commodities imported into Omana in the Persian Gulf.

6

The Tavdáva mentioned towards the middle of the 6th century by Cosmas Indicopleustes, as brought to Taprobane (Ceylon) from China and other emporia, was probably the wood under consideration. In Ceylon its essential oil was used as early as the 9th century in embalming the corpses of the princes.

Fig. in Bentley and Trimen's Medic. Plants, part 18 (1877).

2 Seemann, Flora Vitiensis, 1865-73. 210-215.

3 The natural woods having been nearly exhausted, the tree is now under culture in the island. Catalogue des produits des colonies françaises, Exposition de 1878. p. 332; they state there that the island of Nossi-bé, on the north-western coast of

Madagascar, also supplies some sandal wood.

4 Whether Santalum lanceolatum Br., a tree found throughout N. and E. Australia, and called sandal wood by the colonists, is an object of trade, we know not.

5 Vincent, Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients, ii. (1807) 378.

6

Migne, Patrologia Cursus, series Græca,

tom. 88. 446.

Sandal wood is named by Masudi1 as one of the costly aromatics of the Eastern Archipelago. In India it was used in the most sacred buildings, of which a memorable example still exists in the famous gates of Somnath, supposed to be 1000 years old.2

In the 11th century sandal wood was found among the treasures of the Egyptian khalifs, as stated in our article on camphor at page 511.

Among European writers, Constantinus Africanus, who flourished at Salerno in the 11th century, was one of the earliest to mention Sandalum. Ebn Serabi, called Serapion the Younger, who lived about the same period, was acquainted with white, yellow, and red sandal wood. All three kinds of sandal wood also occur in a list of drugs in use at Frankfort, circa A.D. 1450; and in the Compendium Aromatariorum of Saladinus, published in 1488, we find mentioned as proper to be kept by the Italian apothecary,-" Sandali trium generum, scilicet albi, rubii et citrini."

Whether the red sandal here coupled with white and yellow was the inodorous wood of Pterocarpus santalinus, now called Lignum santalinum rubrum or Red Sanders (see p. 199), is extremely doubtful. It may have meant real sandal wood, of which three shades, designated white, red, and yellow, are still recognized by the Indian traders.

On the other hand, we learn from Barbosa that about 1511 white and yellow sandal wood were worth at Calicut on the Malabar Coast from eight to ten times as much as the red, which would show that in his day the red was not a mere variety of the other two, but something far cheaper, like the Red Sanders Wood of modern commerce.

In 1635 the subsidy levied on sandal wood imported into England was 18. per lb. on the white, and 2s. per lb. on the yellow.

The first figure and satisfactory description of Santalum album occur in the Herbarium Amboinense of Rumphius (ii. tab. 11).

Production-The dry tracts producing this valuable wood occupy patches of a strip of country lying chiefly in Mysore and Coimbatore, about 250 miles long, north and north-west of the Neilgherry Hills, and having Coorg and Canara between it and the Indian Ocean; also a piece of country further eastward in the districts of Salem and North Arcot, where the tree grows from the sea-level up to an elevation of 3000 feet. In Mysore, where sandal wood is most extensively produced, the trees all belong to Government, and can only be felled by the proper officers. This privilege was conferred on the East India Company by a treaty with Hyder Ali, made 8 August 1770, and the

1I. 222 in the work quoted in the Appendix.

2 They are 11 feet high and 9 feet wide, and richly carved out of sandal wood; they were constructed for the temple of Somnath in Guzerat, once esteemed the holiest temple in India. On its destruction in A.D. 1025, the gates were carried off to Ghuzni in Afghanistan, where they remained until the capture of that city by the English in 1842, when they were taken back to India. They are now preserved in the citadel of Agra. For a representation of the gates, see Archæologia, xxx. (1844) pl. 14.

3 Opera, Basil. 1536-39, Lib. de Gradibus,

369.

.

6 Thus Milburn in his Oriental Commerce (1813) saysthe deeper the colour, the higher is the perfume; and hence the merchants sometimes divide sandal into red, yellow, and white, but these are all different shades of the same colour, and do not arise from any difference in the species of the tree." (i. 291.)

7 Ramusio, Navigationi et Viaggi, etc., Venet. 1554. fol. 357 b., Libro di Odoardo Barbosa Portoghese.

8 The Rates of Marchandizes, Lond. 1635.

monopoly has been maintained to the present day. The Mysore annual exports of sandal wood are about 700 tons, valued at £27,000.1 They are shipped from Mangalore.

A similar monopoly existed in the Madras Presidency until a few years ago, when it was abandoned. But sandal wood is still a source of revenue to the Madras Government, which by the systematic management of the Forest Department has of late years been regularly increasing. The quantity of sandal wood felled in the Reserved Forests during the year 1872-3 was returned as 15,329 maunds (547) tons).2

3

The sandal-wood tree, which is indigenous to the regions just mentioned, used to be reproduced by seeds sown spontaneously or by birds; but it is now being raised in regular plantations, the seeds being sown two or three in a hole with a chili (Capsicum) seed, the latter producing a quick-growing seedling which shades the sandal while young. It is probable that the nurse-plant affords sustenance, for it has been shown that Santalum is parasitic, its roots attaching themselves by tuber-like processes to those of many other plants; and it is also said that young sandal plants thrive best when grass is allowed to grow up in the seed-beds.

4

The trees attain their prime in 20 to 30 years, and have then trunks as much as a foot in diameter. A tree having been felled, the branches are lopped off, and the trunk allowed to lie on the ground for several months, during which time the white ants eat away the greater part of the inodorous sapwood. The trunk is then roughly trimmed, sawn into billets 2 to 2 feet long, and taken to the forest depots. There the wood is weighed, subjected to a second and more careful trimming, and classified according to quality. In some parts it is customary not to fell but to dig the tree up; in others the root is dug up after the trunk has been cut down,-the root affording valuable wood, which with the chips and sawdust are preserved for distillation, or for burning in the native temples. The sap wood and branches are worthless."

In 1863 a sort of sandal wood afforded by Fusanus spicatus (p. 599) was one of the chief exports of Western Australia, whence it was shipped to China. A trifling payment for permission to cut growing timber of any kind was the only barrier placed on the felling of the trees. The farmers employed their teams during the dull season in bringing to Perth or Guildford the logs of sandal which had been felled and trimmed in the bush; and there was a flourishing trade so long as trees of a fair size could be obtained within 100 or even 150 miles of the towns, where the commodity was worth £6 to £6 10s. per ton. But the ill-regulated and improvident destruction of the trees in the more easily accessible districts has so reduced their numbers that the trade

1B. H. Baden Powell, Report on the Administration of the Forest Department in the several provinces under the Government of India, 1872-73, Calcutta, 1874. vol. i. 27.

2 Report of the Administration of the Madras Presidency during the year 1872–73, Madras, 1874. 18. 143.

3 Beddome, Flora Sylvatica for Southern India, 1872. 256.

Scott in Journ. of Agricult. and Horticult. Soc. of India, Calcutta, vol. ii. part 1 (1871) 287.

5 Elliot, Experiences of a Planter in the Jungles of Mysore, ii. (1871) 237; also verbal information communicated by Capt. Campbell Walker, Deputy Conservator of Forests, Madras.