rue lignum aloes so highly esteemed in
the East as a perfume or incense, is said to be produced by the
_Aloexylum agallochum_, Lour. This remarkable wood contains a large
quantity of an odoriferous oleo-resin; when heated it undergoes a sort
of imperfect fusion, and exhales a fragrant and very agreeable odor.
Its price in Sumatra is about L30 per cwt. Inferior specimens are
obtained at Malacca. Eagle wood is also obtained from several other
trees. The true eagle wood is however very scarce.

SECTION IV.

DYES AND COLORING STUFFS, AND TANNING SUBSTANCES.

Of the several classes of materials collected at the Industrial
Exhibition in Hyde Park, in 1851, few possessed so much importance in
the eyes of the textile and leather manufacturer and chemist as the
different products used in the arts and manufactures for coloring and
tanning purposes. These were in a great measure lost sight of by the
public at large, being scattered about in small quantities in a great
number of directions; and, from the minute samples shown, were in many
instances overlooked altogether. Besides furnishing some novel and
general statistical facts, which may prove interesting, I propose also
in this section to draw attention more prominently to some of these
products, which are at present little known or appreciated.

Coloring substances for staining and dyeing are obtained indifferently
from the animal, mineral, and vegetable kingdoms, but it is of the
last alone that I shall have to speak. The importance of a more
careful consideration of this subject will be admitted, if we consider
how much the prosperity and extent of our cotton, silk, woollen, and
leather manufactures depends on a liberal and cheap supply of dyes and
tannin, to give beauty and color to the fabrics, and substance and
utility to the skins. Even oil colors, for painters' purposes, which
do not come within the scope of my remarks, form an item in our yearly
exports of the value of L250,000, and when we calculate the large
amount of cotton, silk and wool worked up, most of which requires
various coloring agents, gums, starches, and mordants;--that nearly
30,000 tons of hides are annually imported, exclusive of those
obtained from our now slaughter-houses, besides goat, seal, and other
skins--and that the exports of our various manufactures of cotton,
linen, silk, wool and leather in 1852, setting aside our home
consumption, amounted to nearly fifty millions sterling, we