most ancient documents of Egyptian, Hebrew,' Sanskrit, Greek, and Roman literature, has been used by mankind for the sake of its oily seeds from the earliest times. The Egyptian name Semsemt already occurring in the Papyrus Ebers, is still existing in the Coptic Semsem, the Arabic Simsim, and the modern Sesamum. The Indian languages have their own terms for it, the Hindustani Til, from the Sanskrit Tila, being one of the best known. Tila already occurs in the Vedic literature. In the days of Pliny the oil was an export from Sind to Europe by way of the Red Sea, precisely as the seeds are at the present day.

During the middle ages the plant, then known as Suseman or Sempsen, was cultivated in Cyprus, Egypt and Sicily; the oil was an article of import from Alexandria to Venice. Joachim Camerarius gave a good figure of the plant in his "Hortus medicus et philosophicus 1588 (tab. 44). In modern times sesamé oil gave way to that of olives, yet at present it is an article which, if not so renowned, is at least of far greater consumption.

Production—The plant comes to perfection within 3 or 4 months; its capsule contains numerous flat seeds, which are about of an inch long by thick, and weigh on an average of a grain. To collect them, the plant when mature is cut down, and stacked in heaps for a few days, after which it is exposed to the sun during the day, but collected again into heaps at night. By this process the capsules gradually ripen and burst, and the seeds fall out.3

The plant is found in several varieties affording respectively white, yellowish, reddish, brown or black seeds. The dark seeds may be deprived of a part of their colouring matter by washing, which is sometimes done with a view to obtain a paler oil.1

We obtained from yellowish seeds 56 per cent. of oil; on a large scale, the yield varies with the variety of seed employed and the process of pressing, from 45 to 50 per cent.

Description-The best kinds of sesame oil have a mild agreeable taste, a light yellowish colour, and scarcely any odour; but in these respects the oil is liable to vary with the circumstances already mentioned. The white seeds produced in Sind are reputed to yield the finest oil.

We prepared some oil by means of ether, and found it to have a sp. gr. of 0.919 at 23° C.; it solidified at 5° C., becoming rather turbid at some degrees above this temperature. Yet sesamé oil is more fluid at ordinary temperatures than ground-nut oil, and is less prone to change by the influence of the air. It is in fact, when of fine quality, one of the less alterable oils.

Chemical Composition-The oil is a mixture of olein, stearin and

1 Isaiah xxviii. 27.

The word Gingeli (or Gergelim), which Roxburgh remarks was (as it is now) in common use among Europeans, derives from the Arabic chulchulân, denoting sesame seed in its husks before being reaped (Dr. Rice). The word Benné is, we believe, of West African origin, and has no connection with Ben, the name of Moringa.

3 For further particulars see Buchanan, Journey from Madras through Mysore, etc.

i. (1807) 95. and ii. 224.

This curious process is described in the Reports of Juries, Madras Exhibition, 1856, p. 31. That the colouring matter of the seeds is actually soluble in water is confirmed by Lépine of Pondicherry as we have learnt from his manuscript notes presented to the Musée des Produits des Colonies de France at Paris. The seeds may even be used as a dye.

other compounds of glycerin with acids of the fatty series. We prepared with it in the usual way a lead plaster, and treated the latter with ether in order to remove the oleate of lead. The solution was then decomposed by sulphuretted hydrogen, evaporated and exposed to hyponitric vapours. By this process we obtained 726 per cent. of Elaïdic Acid. The specimen of sesame oil prepared by ourselves consequently contained 760 per cent. of olein, inasmuch as it must be supposed to be present in the form of triolein. In commercial oils the amount of olein is certainly not constant.

As to the solid part of the oil, we succeeded in removing fatty acids, freely melting, after repeated crystallizations, at 67° C., which may consist of stearic acid mixed with one or more of the allied homologous acids, as palmitic and myristic. By precipitating with acetate of magnesium, as proposed by Heintz, we finally isolated acids melting at 525 to 53°, 62 to 63°, and 69-2° C., which correspond to myristic, palmitic and stearic acids.

The small proportion of solid matter which separates from the oil on congelation cannot be removed by pressure, for even at many degrees below the freezing point it remains as a soft magma. In this respect sesamé oil differs from that of olive.

Sesamé oil contains an extremely small quantity of a substance, perhaps resinoid, which has not yet been isolated. It may be obtained in solution by repeatedly shaking 5 volumes of the oil with one of glacial acetic acid. If a cold mixture of equal weights of sulphuric and nitric acids is added in like volume, the acetic solution acquires a greenish yellow hue. The same experiment being made with spirit of wine substituted for acetic acid, the mixture assumes a blue colour, quickly changing to greenish yellow. The oil itself being gently shaken with sulphuric and nitric acids, takes a fine green hue, as shown in 1852 by Behrens, who at the same time pointed out that no other oil exhibits this reaction. It takes place even with the bleached and perfectly colourless oil. Sesamé oil added to other oils, if to a larger extent than 10 per cent., may be recognised by this test. The reaction ought to be observed with small quantities, say 1 gramme of the oil and 1 gramme of the acid mixture, previously cooled.

Commerce-The commercial importance of Sesamé may be at once illustrated by the fact that France imported in 1870, 83 millions; in 1871, 57 millions; and 1872, 50 millions of kilogrammes (984,693 cwt.) of the seed.1

The quantity shipped from British India in the year 1871-72 was 565,854 cwt., of which France took no less than 495,414 cwt. The imports of the seed into the United Kingdom in 1870 were to the value of only about £13,000.

Sesamé is extensively produced in Corea and in the Chinese island of Formosa, which in 1869 exported the exceptionally large quantity of 46,000 peculs3 (1 pecul 133 lb.). Zanzibar and Mozambique also furnish considerable quantities of sesamé, whilst on the West Coast of

Africa the staple oil-seed is Ground-nut (Arachis hypogaa L. p. 186). The chief place for the manufacture of sesamé oil is Marseilles.

Uses--Good sesamé oil might be employed without disadvantage for all the purposes for which olive oil is used.' As its congealing point is some degrees below that of olive oil, it is even more fitted for cool climates. Sesame seeds are largely consumed as food both in India and Tropical Africa. The foliage of the plant abounds in mucilage, and in the United States is sometimes used in the form of poultice.

LABIATE.

FLORES LAVANDULE.

Lavender Flowers; F. Fleurs de Lavande; G. Lavendelblumen.

Botanical Origin-Lavandula vera DC., a shrubby plant growing in the wild state from 1 to 2 feet high, but attaining 3 feet or more under cultivation. It is indigenous to the mountainous regions of the countries bordering the western half of the Mediterranean basin. Thus it occurs in Eastern Spain, Southern France (extending northward to Lyons and Dauphiny), in Upper Italy, Corsica, Calabria and Northern Africa, on the outside of the olive region. In cultivation it grows very well in the open air throughout the greater part of Germany and as far north as Norway and Livonia; the northern plant would even appear to be more fragrant, according to Schübeler."

History-There has been much learned investigation in order to identify lavender in the writings of the classical authors, but the result has not been satisfactory, and no allusion has been found which unquestionably refers either to L. vera or to L. Spica, whereas L. Stochas was perfectly familiar to the ancients.

The earliest mention of lavender that we have observed, occurs in the writings of the abbess Hildegard,5 who lived near Bingen on the Rhine during the 12th century, and who in a chapter De Lavendula alludes to the strong odour and many virtues of the plant. In a poem of the school of Salerno entitled Flos Medicina occur the following lines:

"Salvia, castoreum, lavendula, primula veris,

Nasturtium, athanas hæc sanant paralytica membra."

In 1387 cushions of satin were made for King Charles VI. of France, to be stuffed with "lavende." Its use was also popular at an early period in the British isles, for we find "Llafant" or "Llafanllys mentioned among the remedies of the "Physicians of Myddvai." And

1 For pharmaceutical uses, the larger proportion of olein and consequent lesser tendency to solidify, should be remembered.

2 On Mont Ventoux near Avignon, the region of Lavandula vera is comprised, according to Martins, between 1500 and 4500 feet above the sea-level. Ann. des Sc. Nat., Bot. x. (1838) 145. 149.

3 Pflanzenwelt Norwegens, Christiania (1873-1875) 260.

8

in Walton's "Description of an inn," about the year 1680 to 1690, we find the walls stuck round with ballads, where the sheets smelt of lavender. . . .1

Lavender was well known to the botanist of the 16th century.

Description-The flowers of Common Lavender are produced in a lax terminal spike, supported on a long naked stalk. They are arranged in 6 to 10 whorls (verticillasters), the lowest being generally far remote from those above it. A whorl consists of two cymes, each having, when fully developed, about three flowers, below which is a rhomboidal acuminate bract, as well as several narrow smaller bracts belonging to the particular flowers. The calyx is tubular, contracted towards the mouth, marked with 13 nerves and 5-toothed, the posterior tooth much. larger than the others. The corolla of a violet colour is tubular, twolipped, the upper lip with two, the lower with three lobes. Both corolla and calyx, as well as the leaves and stalks, are clothed with a dense tomentum of stellate hairs, amongst which minute shining oil-glands can be seen by the aid of a lens.

The flowers emit when rubbed a delightful fragrance, and have a pleasant aromatic taste. The leaves of the plant are oblong linear, or lanceolate, revolute at the margin and very hoary when young.

For pharmaceutical use or as a perfume, lavender flowers are stripped from the stalks and dried by a gentle heat. They are but seldom kept in the shops, being grown almost entirely for the sake of their essential oil.

Production of Essential Oil-Lavender is cultivated in the parishes of Mitcham, Carshalton and Beddington and a few adjoining localities, all in Surrey, to the extent of about 300 acres. It is also grown at Market Deeping in Lincolnshire; also at Hitchin in Hertfordshire, where lavender was apparently cultivated as early as the year 1568.2

At the latter place there were in 1871 about 50 acres so cropped.

The plants which are of a small size, and grown in rows in dry open fields, flower in July and August. The flowers are usually cut with the stalks of full length, tied up in mats, and carried to the distillery there to await distillation. This is performed in the same large stills that are used for peppermint. The flowers are commonly distilled with the stalks as gathered, and either fresh, or in a more or less dry state. A few cultivators distill only the flowering heads, thereby obtaining a superior product. Still more rarely, the flowers are stripped from the stalks, and the latter rejected in toto.3 According to the careful experiments of Bell,' the oil made in this last method is of exceedingly fine quality. The produce he obtained in 1846 was 261 ounces per 100 lb. of flowers, entirely freed from stalks; in 1847, 255 ounces; and in 1848, 20 ounces: the quantities of flowers used in the respective years were 417, 633, and 923 lb. Oil distilled from the stalks alone was found to have a peculiar rank odour. In the distillation of

1 Macaulay, Hist. of England, i. ch. 3, Inns.

2 Perhs, Proc. American Pharm. Association, 1876. 819.

3 For more particulars see the interesting

account of Holmes, Pharm. Journ. viii. (1877) 301. The author describes also the disease which is affecting the lavender since about the year 1860.

4 Pharm. Journ. viii. (1849) 276.

lavender, it is said that the oil which comes over in the earlier part of the operation is of superior flavour.

We have no accurate data as to the produce of oil obtained in the ordinary way, but it is universally stated to vary extremely with the season. Warren' gives it as 10 to 12 lb., and in an exceptional case as much as 24 lb. from the acre of ground under cultivation. At Hitchin,2 the yield would appear to approximate to the last-named quantity. The experiments performed in Bell's laboratory as detailed above, show that the flowers deprived of stalks afforded on an average exactly 11 per cent. of essential oil.

Oil of Lavandula vera is distilled in Piedmont, and in the mountainous parts of the South of France, as in the villages about Mont Ventoux near Avignon, and in those some leagues west of Montpellier (St. Guilhen-le-désert, Montarnaud and St. Jean de Fos)— in all cases from the wild plant. This foreign oil is offered in commerce of several qualities, the highest of which commands scarcely one-sixth the price of the oil produced at Mitcham. The cheaper sorts at least are obtained by distilling the entire plant.

Chemical Composition-The only constituent of lavender flowers that has attracted the attention of chemists is the essential oil (Oleum Lavandula). It is a pale yellow, mobile liquid, varying in sp. gr. from 087 to 0.94 (Zeller), having a very agreeable odour of the flowers and a strong aromatic taste. The oil distilled at Mitcham (1871) we find to rotate the plane of polarization 42° to the left, in a column of 50 mm.

Oil of lavender seems to be a mixture in variable proportions of oxygenated oils and stearoptene, the latter being identical, according to Dumas, with common camphor. In some samples it is said to exist to the extent of one-half, and to be sometimes deposited from the oil in cold weather; we have not however been able to ascertain this fact. The oil according to Lallemand (1859) appears also to contain compound ethers.

Commerce-Dried lavender flowers are the object of some trade in the south of Europe. According to the official Tableau général du Commerce de la France, Lavender and Orange Flowers (which are not separated) were exported in 1870 to the extent of 110,958 kilo. (244,741 lb.),—chiefly to the Barbary States, Turkey and America. There are no data to show the amount of oil of lavender imported into England.

Uses-Lavender flowers are not prescribed in modern English medicine. The volatile oil has the stimulant properties common to bodies of the same class and is much used as a perfume.

Other Species of Lavender.

1. Lavandula Spica DC. is a plant having a very close resemblance to L. vera, of which Linnæus considered it a variety, though its distinctness is now admitted. It occurs over much of the area of L. vera, but does not extend so far north, nor is it found in such elevated situa

1 Pharm. Journ. vi. (1865) 257.

2 Ibid. i. (1860) 278. The statement is that an acre of land yields "about 6 Win

chester quarts" of oil.-One Winchester quart 282 litres.

3 The Mitcham oil fetches 30s. to 608. per lb., according to the season.