ferred by many to tea, and the bark of the root is used as an external application in gangrene.

Poke root weed, phytolacca decandra. The tender plant is an excellent substitute for spinach. A tincture of the berries is employed in chronic rheumatisms, and a decoction of the root by farriers in cleaning fistulous ulcers.

Sumach, rhus glabrum. An infusion of the berries makes a drink cooling and acidulous, and proves gently cathartic. Michella repens, partridge berry. A decoction of this plant is esteemed a good emetic, and has gained a very general use. Diuretic flagg, iris virginica. This plant possesses considerable diuretic powers, a decoction of the root in the hands of several planters has performed cures in dropsical cases.

Bucks eye, poor man's soap-esculus pavia. The root of this plant is employed in washing woolens, and from the fruit good starch may be plentifully obtained. The fruit powdered and thrown into stagnant water, has the effect of intoxicating the fish. They rise to the suface and are readily taken by the hand.

VEGETABLES REMARKABLE FOR THEIR BEAUTY, FRAGRANCE, OR CURIOUS STRUCTURE.

The mantling vines of the trumpet flower, yellow jasmines, convolvolus, ipomea, glycine or Carolina kidney bean tree. The fragrant bay trees, the delicate mellifluous smelling azalea, the beautiful and sweet honeysuckle, the cheerful clematis or traveler's joy, the shewy hibiscus, the elegant fringe and snowdrop trees, the air-perfuming sweet scented shrubs, the rich and gay variety of wild asters and dwarf sunflowers, with the wood-enlivening phlox, the iris, the curious water lily, the philadelphus inodorus, the andromeda, the kalmia, the storax tree, the rhododendron, the spirea, the viburnum with the humble but beautiful and sweet mitchella repens, the wild strawberries, the blackberry bush, and the huckleberry, the wild rose, the bartsia coccinea, wild lilies, vanilla or Indian tobacco, asclepias of many sorts, wood anemones, the utricularia ceratophylla or bladder snout. Sarracenia, dionea muscipula, and many others which either display their beauties to every traveler, or in more retired situations are waiting to reward the curiosity and industry of the student of nature.

The woods furnish four native kinds of grape: the fox grape, summer, winter and muscadine grape; their luxuriant vines and sweet smelling blossoms contribute greatly to the pleasantness of the country at an early season: their fruit is moderately grateful, and they furnish excellent natural stocks for engrafting imported grapes on. The cactus opuntia, or Indian fig, is also a native of Carolina. Its growth is curious;

its fruit when thoroughly ripe agreeable: it furnishes also a good but not durable scarlet dye; but it is likely to become an object of importance as furnishing food for the cochineal insect which may be found in vast numbers on its leaves in the months of April and May.

FOREIGN TREES AND OTHER VEGETABLES NATURALIZED.

The melia azedarach, or pride of India, introduced by Thomas Lamboll. It is of very quick growth: the wood makes furniture; the berries are eaten by horses and birds; and the roots are a powerful vermifuge.

The stillingia sebifera, or tallow tree, was introduced from the East Indies by Henry Laurens. Is a very beautiful tree, and perfectly free from insects. Its berries are said to yield in China an oil from which candles are made. They have not hitherto answered for that purpose in Carolina. Their leaves are green in mild winters ten or eleven months in the

year.

The weeping willow, salix babylonica. The pliable bark and branches of this may be woven into baskets. Its whole appearance connected with its situation near water, disposes the mind to pensive contemplation.

Lombardy poplar. Pupulus dilitata.

Sterculia platanifolia. Introduced by Andrew Michaux, and propagated by General Pinckney.

Palma Christi, or castor oil tree, is easily propagated, grows in abundance, and yields from 100 to 150 gallons of oil to the acre. Mr. Rudulph of Camden has planted fifty or sixty acres of it; from its berries he has obtained by expression large quantities of cold drawn oil, which in equal doses opens the bowels as effectually as castor oil imported from the West Indies.

Sesamun indicum, bennè oil nut. The seeds of this plant furnish an excellent oil for salads, and every purpose for which olive oil is used; the grain parched makes a pleasant, light food, and may be prepared as a substitute for chocolate, and an infusion of the leaves in water produces a gelatinous drink highly recommended in bowel complaints.

The popy, papaver somniferum, has been successfully cultivated near Charlestown; and good opium, equal to any imported, has been prepared from it, by Catharine Henry Laurens Ramsay. If the present enormous price of that drug, which exceeds its weight in silver, continues, the preparation of opium will be an object worthy of attention. Carolina is indebted to the East Indies for its rice, indigo and cotton. To these may be added, and originally from the same country, opium, which may be cultivated to any extent that is requisite. Hops, humulus lupulus, grow plentifully and require little

care. A growing fondness for beer may render a crop of this nearly as profitable as cotton, especially if the price and European demand for this article should, as many expect, be considerably diminished. As a further recommendation of hops, it has been found by late experiments to be in several cases and some constitutions, a more unexceptionable anodyne than laudanum; while at the same time infusions of it give tone to a debilitated stomach.

The common and despised datura stramonium, or Jamestown weed, is a most powerful medicine in epilepsy and some of the most obstinate complaints to which human nature is liable; prepared in the form of an ointment, it has an anodyne effect when it is applied. to pains on or near the surface of the body; an application of the leaves frequently produces the same result.

ORNAMENTAL SHRUBS.

The gardenia florida or cane jasmine, the virburnumtinus, the rosa ferox, sometimes called rosa multiflora, more commonly known by the name of the nondescript, the rosa sinensis, perpetual rose-rosa moschata, musk rose-the rosa muscosa, moss rose, and many other beautiful and formerly rare kinds of roses. The olea fragrans, the hydrangea hortensis, double and single oleanders, altheas, cultivated myrtles of various descriptions, english jasmines and honeysuckles, several kinds of elegant mimosas, an abundance of hyacinths, narcissuses, daffodils, tonquils, ixias, ranunculuses, anemones, with a profusion of annuals of the most beautiful kind. Of fruit, sweet and sour oranges are raised, and, with some additional care, citrons, lemons and limes, almonds and chesnuts, figs and pomegranates, red and yellow raspberries and grapes, but not in profusion.

VEGETABLES USED AS FOOD.

Okra, melons, pompions, and squashes in many varieties, cucumbers, tanniers, irish and sweet potatoes, groundnuts used as food as a substitute for cocoa, and as a source of oil for domestic purposes.

Indian potatoe, suckahoe truffles, lycoperdon tuber is found in great abundance in old fields one or two feet beneath the surface of the earth, attached to the decayed roots of the hickory. This subterranean production afforded the indians wholesome bread.

The country abounds also in natural grasses of which the crab grass is undoubtedly the most valuable. Canes make angling rods, and reeds for weavers, and are excellent food for cattle. The common salt marsh yields manure and also provender for horses, for whose use hundreds of bundles of it are

almost daily sold in Charlestown market, at an early period of the spring and through the summer. It is a wholesome auxiliary to green oats and crab grass.

Long moss, tillandsia usneoides-this curious production marks the boundary between the upper and lower country. In the first, though most wanted, as the winters are more severe, it does not grow naturally, and all endeavors to propagate it have been unsuccessful. In the latter it grows profusely as an appendage to trees, and gives to them the venerable appearance of long pendulous gray beards. In hard winters it is greedily eaten by cattle, and serves for food till the grass springs; when properly prepared it is used as a substitute for hair in stuffing mattrasses, it is not lasting, but in other respects answers very well. With the exception of Doctor Garden, no Carolinian is recollected as having studied botany scientifically or otherwise than for horticultural purposes prior to the revolution, but since that event, this delightful science has excited attention, which though daily increasing, is far short of what it deserves.* At the head of its present votaries are Stephen Elliott of Beaufort, Henry Middleton, General Pinckney, and Dr. MacBride of St. Stephens; the latter of whom prosecutes this study with ardor and success in every relation, but most particularly as connected with the practice of physic. It has also been successfully cultivated by Mrs. (General) Pinckney, who has formed an extensive hortus siccus, or collection, of dried specimens of the botanic riches of Carolina. Miss Maria Drayton of Drayton Hall, and Miss Martha Henry Laurens Ramsay of Charlestown, are entitled to a distinguished place among its admirers and students.

There are many medical plants, the virtues of which have not been ascertained, nor can they properly be till they are made the subject of repeated experiments. To the candidates for medical degrees it is submitted whether any subjects for inaugural dissertations can have equal charms, or excite an equal interest, as experimental investigations of some of the medicinal vegetables of the country. The virtues of several of these are now in a great measure lost to the community, because unknown, or imperfectly ascertained. To persons residing in the country, the study of botany would beguile the time which, from want of some useful pursuit, frequently hangs heavy on their hands. To the pious it affords a constant source of love and gratitude to the Author of nature, for having done so much to benefit and please his creatures. To persons of taste and refinement, it affords a continual feast. To the studious, by encouraging and rewarding rural excursions, it gives agreeable relaxation and wholesome exercise, without wasting any of their time; for by exchanging their retirement and books for the woods and the volume of nature, the improvement of the mind goes on, while the body acquires new vigor: and to all it affords a never-failing source of enjoyment and employment which smooths the brow of care, and gives a zest to life.

Much has Carolina done for the encouragement of literature. One step more will justify her sons in claiming pre-eminent rank for generously patronizing science. A botanical garden at Columbia, of about twenty acres, would cost but little, and under proper management could not fail to diffuse knowledge among the youth of the country, of immense practical use, leading to discoveries that, even in a pecuniary point of view, would probably repay with handsome interest the pittance necessary for its support.

LITERARY HISTORY OF SOUTH CAROLINA,

FROM 1670 TO 1508.

CHAPTER IX.

The colonists of modern times have many advantages over those of antiquity, for they carry with them the civilization, arts, and refinements of the times in which they lived and the countries from which they migrated. The settlement of Carolina commenced some considerable time after the discovery of printing-the reformation of religion-and the restoration of learning. It was nearly coeval with the institution of the Royal Society of London, and began at a time when Addison, Boyle, Boerhaave, Barrow, Fenelon, Hale, Locke, Milton, Newton, Rollin, Sydney, Sydenham, Sloan, Tillotson, Watts, and many other suns of intellect were living and enlightening the world with the beams of knowledge. Though few if any of the early settlers of the province were learned men, yet they brought with them general ideas of European literature. The subsequent improvements in the old world were soon transmitted to the new, and by the noble art of printing extensively diffused. The opportunities enjoyed by the emigrants to South Carolina for rapidly rising to consequence, surpassed those which had been at any period within the grasp of the colonies of Asia; or even of Greece or Rome. To prepare the soil for cultivation-to provide shelter and the necessaries of life, must have engrossed the first care of the early settlers; but this was no sooner accomplished than they adopted measures for promoting the moral and literary improvement of themselves, and particularly of the rising generation. In the year 1700 a law was passed" for securing the provincial library of Charlestown." This had been previously formed by the liberality of Dr. Bray, the lords proprietors, and the inhabitants of the province; and was, by special act of the Legislature, deposited in the hands of the minister of the Church of England in Charlestown, for the time being, to be loaned out to the inhabitants in succession, under the direction and care of James Moore, Joseph Morton, Nicholas Trott, Ralph Izard, Job Howe, Thomas Smith, Robert Stevens, Joseph Croskeys, and Robert Fenwicke; who were appointed commissioners for that purpose. Libraries were soon after formed in the different parishes, but chiefly for the use of the rectors and ministers. Most of the books in these parochial libraries were the gift either of Dr. Bray or of the society for