The lery purposes are chiefly supplied by Hindoo- | from thirty to forty, are frequently worn stan and the Island of Ceylon. Madras, round the necks of sepoys in the East India Bombay, and Colombo (Ceylon), export to Company's service as a part of their uniform England annually over four hundred tons of —a substitute, indeed, for their stocks. stag-horn. These are much valued. The city of Dacca, so famous for its muslins, rehorns dropped on the hills and plains of ceives a large number of these shells, which India and Ceylon are very heavy, and almost are used for beating the finer cloths manuas solid as bone. The horns shed by more factured in that populous and rich emporium than a quarter of a million head of deer are of cotton fabrics. The jawbone of the boalee gathered in India for the manufactures of fish is also used for carding cotton for the Sheffield. The value ranges from £25 to Dacca muslins.* £50 per ton. Tortoiseshell is brought to Europe chiefly from the Eastern Archipelago, and beautiful specimens of manufactured articles in that material both from India and China. India sends to Europe great variety of shells and of marine animal products suitable for manufactures. Large quantities of the calcareous plate (commonly called bone) which strengthens the back of the cuttle-fish are brought from the Persian Gulf to Bombay, and thence shipped to Europe. We receive from India about a thousand tons of cowrie shells (Cypræa moneta) yearly, chiefly for transmission to the west coast of Africa, where a string of about forty is worth. 1d. or 2d.* Of black-edged mother-of-pearl shells about a hundred tons are annually shipped from Bombay. There is a shell which, although not much sent to Europe, forms an important item in the coasting trade of India; and in the trade of Ceylon figures as an export to the Indian continent. It is called chanks (Turbinella pyrum), and is a solid porcellaneous fusiform shell, used for cutting into armlets, anklets, &c., known as "bangles" in the East Indies, which are often highly ornamented. More than 4,300,000 of these shells are sometimes shipped in a year from Ceylon to the ports of Calcutta and Madras. Chanks, also called kauncho rings, are cut out by means of rude circular saws into narrow slips, which, when joined very accurately, give the whole an appearance of being formed from the most circular part of the shell. There is a small process, or button, at the base of each shell, which is sawn off, and, after being ground to a shape resembling that of a flat turnip, is perforated for the purpose of being strung. When so prepared, these receive the name of krantahs, of which two rows, each containing *The shells of Cypræa moneta, Cypræa annulus, and some small white shells of the genus Marginella, were formerly employed occasionally in European medicine. In Scinde they are at the present day calcined, and the powder sprinkled over sores. Sixteen hundred and twentyfive hundredweight of cowries have been imported in one ship from Ceylon for this country. The Island of Ceylon is famous for its pearl fisheries, as has been shown in the chapter treating of that island. In the chapter on China the skill of the Chinese in producing artificial pearls has been noticed. These are articles of export to Europe. The pearlshells, as well as their precious contents, are imported into England from Ceylon. From the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf coral is chiefly procured. Bombay is the chief depot for this commodity for shipment to Europe. Large coral deposits have been lately found on the coasts of Oran, and a bank on the southern coast of the Island of Ceylon. Wax is a valuable article of Indian foreign trade. From China the best description is obtained, but India is rich in this product, which is also of excellent quality. About 300,000 lbs. of beeswax are annually shipped from Madras. It has already been shown that the vegetable dyes of India are valuable, especially indigo; pigments and dyes yielded by animals form also an important element of Indian export trade. Cochineal is only exported in small quantities to Europe. India has not done justice to herself in this branch of trade, for the Punjaub possesses the insect abundantly;† and certain writers allege that the dyers of Lahore have from time immemorial used the dye which it produces. This, however, is denied by naturalists in the service of the East India Company. From observations and experiments made in the Punjaub, it has been established that the wild cochineal of that district will produce the most beautiful dye known under that name. The supply of the English market is chiefly from America, but the Dutch have gathered the insect abundantly in Java; § and although attempts to introduce the American insect to India failed, no proper attention was paid to that which was in *Shells and their Uses. By P. L. Simmonds. Journal of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India, vol. vii. part 1. Observations on the Wild Cochineal of the Punjand and the North-Western Provinces. By Dr. Dempster. § Dr. M'Cleland, of the Botanical Gardens, Calcutta. digenous to India.* The attention of the governor and secretary of the north-western provinces was directed to the subject in 1855-6, and the probability is that this article of commerce will be brought to command more attention in the European markets. The lac dye is a product peculiar to India, using the term in the more extended signification. It reaches us from India in the various shapes of stick-lac (deposited round the branches of trees), seed-lac, thread-lac, melted down into a resin, forming the basis of sealing-wax and lackers or varnishes; and the red colouring matter, in cakes, known as lac-dye, which forms a dye-stuff. Lac is obtained chiefly on the hilly parts of Hindoostan, on both sides of the Ganges, and in Birmah. From the port of Calcutta upwards of 4,000,000 lbs. are annually shipped. Lac insects (Coccus lacca) are found in enormous numbers in the mountain forests on the sides of the Ganges, and line the branches of various trees, as the Ficus Indica, Ficus religiosa, Croton lacciferum, and others. When about to deposit their ova, these insects puncture the young shoots and twigs of the various trees: the branches then become encrusted with a reddish-coloured resinous concretion, which consists of the inspissated juice of the plant imbued with a peculiar colouring matter derived from the insect: the insects, when attached to the branches of the trees, soon become enveloped in the layer of resinous matter, which hardens on exposure : this is the stick-lac of commerce. The insect dies, and the body shrivels into an oval bag, containing a minute drop of red fluid: this is extracted from the lac, and when formed into small masses becomes the lac-dye of commerce. It is extensively used as a substitute for cochineal. Stick-lac, which is chiefly obtained from Siam and Bengal, is the basis whence lac-dye and shell-lac are manufactured. These are the stick-lacs of commerce, the resinous substance mentioned above. After the lac-dye has been separated from the stick-lac, the preparation of which is usually carried on in India, the substances remaining are formed, and become articles of commerce. Ruby seed-lac and orange seed-lac are alsc articles of commerce, being used in the manufacture of spirit varnishes, lac-wax, white and yellow. Bleached lac is extensively used in the manufacture of the finer sorts of sealingwax, and the wax which separates during the purification of the lac is called lac-wax, and comparatively little known. This substance is readily fused, and may be well employed in taking casts, which it does with great sharpness. It is probable, also, that it might be advantageously used to mix with other and more fusible materials in the manufacture of candles. Lac is found encircling the branches of many trees in India in the form of a tube, half an inch to an inch in diameter. The broken branches, with incrustations at various distances, is called in commerce stick-lac, and it ought to be semi-transparent. The lac is formed by the insect into cells, somewhat resembling a honeycomb, in which the insect is generally found entire, and owing to whose presence stick-lac yields, by proper treatment, a red dye, nearly if not quite as bright as that obtained from cochineal, and more permanent. The colouring matter exhibited by grinding stick-lac, and then treating it with water, constitutes seed-lac. The crude resin is abundant in the jungles of India: the best is produced upon the koosumba (Schleichera trijuga), which yields the colouring matter twice a year. We import upwards of 1500 tons annually of crude shell-lac and lac-dye, of the value of £88,000. The native process of making the lac-dye in cakes is as follows:-The lac having been carefully picked from the branches, is reduced to a coarse powder in a stone handmill, and is then thrown into a cistern, covered with two inches of water, and allowed to soak for sixteen hours. It is then trampled by men for four or five hours, until the water appears well coloured, each person having about ten pounds' weight of lac to operate upon. The whole is then strained through a cloth, a solution of hot alum water is poured over it, and the decoction is drawn off, remaining a day to settle. It is subsequently passed into other cisterns, the water is run off, and the colouring matter deposited is taken up, and placed in a canvas strainer to drain. It is then passed through a press to remove all remaining moisture, and the cakes *Lac-dye usually comes into commerce in the form of small square cakes, or as a reddish black powder, and contains, in addition to a considerable quantity of resinous matter, a carmine-like pigment, employed in dyeing scarlet, for which purpose it must be dissolved in sul phuric acid or in a strong acid solution of tin. 3 G of dye are made up with the distinguishing | of particular articles, the exportation of which letter or mark of the manufacturer. * are upon the increase, will set forth the importance of the export trade of the chief presidency : The lac-dye imported into England during 1856 weighed 18,123 cwt. In 1857 the importation was less. Various animal substances used in pharmacy and perfumery are exported from India. Civet, the odoriferous substance produced by the civet cat, is brought from Calicut and other parts of the East Indies. Musk is derived from Eastern and Central Asia as well as from other places. Bezoar is a name given to a concrete substance found in the stomachs of animals, and to which many valuable properties were formerly ascribed. It had the supposed virtue of being an antidote to poison, and was considered an absorbent. There are several kinds of bezoar met with, but the oriental is most esteemed, which is brought from Borneo and some of the seaports of the Persian Gulf. It has a smooth glossy surface, and is of a dark green or olive colour. Varieties of this concretion are found in the stomach of the wild boar of India, in the gall-bladder of the ox, common in Nepaul, and in the gall-bladder of the camel; this last is much prized as a yellow paint by the Hindoos. The Persian bezoar is said to be procured from the chamois, or wild goat (Capra gazella). Cow bezoar will fetch about 40s. per lb. in the Indian bazaars, and bezoar stone from the ghauts 6d. per lb. According to Frezier, bezoars have been found in guanacoes. The value of hemp from Bengal in 1855 was £38,000. The export trade of certain non-regulation provinces in connection with the Bengal government has also greatly increased. Thus, Arracan was a swamp when, thirty years In 1856 ago, it was wrested from Birmah. its exports exceeded in value a million sterling, rice being the chief commodity. Its imports were almost exclusively silver. The following is a view of the imports and exports of the three presidencies during the year 1856:† 1855-6 British. Specimens of the Indian blistering beetles, Mylabris pustulata, and Mylabris punctum, a smaller species, were shown at the Madras Exhibition by Dr. Collas of Pondicherry, accompanied by a full interesting report on their blistering properties and careful researches into their natural history, which he published in the Moniteur Official, at Pondicherry, on the 2nd of March, 1854. Both insects are found in large quantities at certain seasons all over Southern India. Some other blistering flies are also met with in India, such as the meloe (Mylabris cichorii), the tilini of the Hindoos, common about Dacca and in Hyderabad. It yields, according to Dr. O'Shaughnessy, on an average, one-third more of cantharidin than the Spanish fly of the Bombay. European shops.† Of late fresh efforts have been made to make these insects articles of commerce for medical purposes, and with every prospect of success. The following statement for 1856, in reference to Bengal alone, of the measure and value Catalogue of the South Kensington Museum. + Dr. Hunter, Transactions of the Asiatic Society. Bengal. MERCHANDIZE. £ 6,692,294 981,231 2,999,420 10,672,945 1855-6 Bengal 9,332,548 The following is a memorandum of some of the items included in the trade from Bengal to other countries than Great Britain : — *A maund is 80 lbs. The value is computed at the rate of two shillings the rupee. Bonnaud's Commercial Annual of Calcutta. average value of £812,380. Indeed, cotton to Great Britain, and cotton and opium to China, constitute a very large portion of the aggregate exports of Bombay. The opium exported in 1854-5 was valued at £2,540,000, and in 1855-6 at £2,560,000. The Calcutta Review gives an elaborate statement of the imports and exports of each presidency up to 1856 inclusively from 1853. The following are extracted from these details. These estimates take no cognizance of re-exports, and state the import and export of each presidency to all places out of that presidency, whether in India or in places beyond its limits. The exports from port to port of the same presidency are not stated. The statement for 1855-6 is alone given in the extract. BENGAL PRESIDENCY. TRADE. Imports, 1855-6. 108,467 MADRAS AND COROMANDEL COAST. Company's ditto 170,555 |