cian Islands, and various parts of the
Levant. It is imported from Aleppo in drums, weighing from 75 to 125
lbs. each, and from Smyrna in compact cakes like wax packed in chests.
In 1839, the quantity on which duty (2s. 6d. per lb.) was paid
amounted to 8,581 lbs. The duty received for scammony, in 1842, was
L607. A spurious kind is prepared from _Calystegia (Convolvulus)
sepium_, a native of Australia, and several plants of the Asclepiadacae
order.

Dr. Russell ("Med. Obs. and Inqui.") thus describes the mode of
procuring scammony:--

Having cleared away the earth from the upper part of the root, the
peasants cut off the top in an oblique direction, about two inches
below where the stalks spring from it. Under the most depending part
of the slope they affix a shell, or some other convenient
receptacle, into which the milky juice flows. It is then left about
twelve hours, which time is sufficient for the drawing off of the
whole juice; this, however, is in small quantities, each root
affording but a few drachms. This milky juice from the several roots
is put together, often into the leg of an old boot, for want of some
more proper vessel, when in a little time it grows hard, and is the
genuine scammony. Various substances are often added to scammony
while yet soft. Those with which it is most usually adulterated are
wheat flour, ashes, or fine sand and chalk.

Liquorice.--The plant which yields the liquorice root of commerce is
_Glycirrhiza glabra_ or _Liquiritia officinalis_. It is a native of
Italy and the southern parts of Europe, but has been occasionally
cultivated with success in Britain, especially at Pontefract, in
Yorkshire, and at Mitcham, in Surrey. The plant is a perennial, with
pale blue flowers. It grows well in a deep, light, sandy loam, and is
readily increased by slips from the roots with eyes. The root, which
is the only valuable part, is long, slender, fibrous, of a yellow
color, and when grown in England is fit for use at the end of three
years. The sweet, subacid, mucilaginous juice is much esteemed as a
pectoral. It owes its sweetness to a peculiar principle called glycrin
or glycirrhiza, which appears also to be present in the root and
leaves of other papilionaceous plants, as _G. echinata_ and
_glandulifera, Trifoliwm alpinum_, and the wild liquorice of the West
Indies, _Abrus precatorius_, a pretty climber.

The greatest portion of our sup