Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/745

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F R A F R A 709 Frankish merchants introduced by John and Conrad of Brandenburg, who had recently conquered the district from the Wends. The principal facts in its external history are the siege which it successfully sustained against the emperor Charles IV. in the time of the pretender Waldemar; the papal excommunication in 1426, on account of its quarrel with the bishop of Lebus; the siege of the Hussites in 1432, of the Poles in 1450, and of the duke of Sagan in 1477 ; and its capture by Gustavus Adolphus in 1G31, and by the Russians in 1759. The presence of the Russians on this occasion cost the town 300,000 thalers, and in the earlier part of the following century the continual quarter ing of foreign troops created great destitution, compelling the magistrates to procure a loan of 208,000 thalcrs. Ewald von Kleist died in the town in August 1759, from the effects of a wound received in the battle at the neigh bouring village of Kuuersdorf ; a monument was erected over his grave in the "park" in 1779. Henrich von Kleist was born in the town in 1776. and Franz von Gaudy in 1800. See K. R. Hanson, Gesch. der Universitat und Stadt Frankfurlh, 1806, and the Gcsch. der Stadt Fraiik/urt, of Saclise (1830), Spieker (1853), and Philippi (1865). FRANKINCENSE, 1 or C-LiBANUM 2 (Gr., Xi/Savuro s, later 0Jos; Lat., tusorthus; Heb., lebonah? Ar., lubdn ; 4 Turk., ghyunluk ; Hind., ganda-birosa ), a gum-resin obtained from certain species of trees of the genus Bosweliia, and natural order Burseracecv. The members of the genus are pos sessed of the following characters : Bark often papyrace ous ; leaves deciduous, compound, alternate, and impari- pinnate, with leaflets serrate or entire ; flowers in racemes or panicles, white, green, yellowish, or pink, having a small persistent, 5-dentate calyx, 5 petals, 10 stamens, a sessile 3 to 5-chambered ovary, a long style, and a 3-lobed stigma; fruit trigonal or pentagonal , and seed compressed. Dr George Birdwood (Trans. Lin. Soc., xxvii., 1871) distin guishes five species of Bosweliia : (A) B. thurifera, Colebr. (B. glabra and B. serrata, Roxb.), indigenous to the moun tainous tracts of central India and the Coromandel coast, and B. papyri/era, (Plosslea floribunda, Eudl.) of Abyssinia, which, though both thuriferous, are not known to yield any of the olibanum of commerce ; and (B) B. Frereana (see ELEMI, vol. viii. p. 122), B. Bhau- Dajiana, and .5. Carterii, the " Yegaar," " Mohr Add," and " Mohr Madow " of the Somali country, in East Africa, the last species including a variety, the " Maghrayt d Sheehaz" of Hadramaut, Arabia, all of which are sources of true frankincense, or olibanum. The trees on the coast of Adel are described by Captain G. B. Kempthorne as growing, without soil, out of polished marble rocks, to which they are attached by a thick oval mass of substance resembling a mixture of lime and mortar : 1 Stephen Skinner, M.D. (Etymologicon Linguce Anglicance, Lend., 1671), gives the derivation: "Frankincense, Thus, q.d. Incensum (i.e.) Thus Libere seu Liberaliter, ut in sacris officiis par est, addendum."

  • "Sic olibanum dixere pro thure ex Graeco 6 i/3a.vos" (Salmasius,

C. S. Pliniancc Exercitationes, t. ii. p. 926, b. F., Traj. ad Rhen., 1689, fol.). So also Fnchs (Op. Didact., pars. ii. p. 42, 1604, fol.), " Offieinis non sine risu eruditorum, Graeco articulo adjecto, Olibanus vocatur." The term olibano wag used in ecclesiastical Latin as early as the pontificate of Benedict IX., in the llth century. (See Ferd. Ughellus, Italia Sacra, torn. i. 108, D., Ven., 1717, fol.) 3 So designated from its -whiteness (J. G. Stuckius, Sacror. et Sucr ific. Gent. Descrip., p. 79, Lugd. Bat., 1695, fol.; Kitto, Cycl. nibl. Lit., ii. p. 806, 1870): cf. Laben, the Somali name for cream (R. F. Burton, First Footsteps in E. Africa, p. 178, 1856). 4 Written Louan by Garcias da Horta (Aromat. et Simpl. Medica ment. Hist., C. Clusii Atrebatis Exoticorum Lib. Sept., p. 157, 1605, fol.), and stated to have been derived by the Arabs from the Greek name, the term less commonly used by them being Conder : cf. Sanskrit Kunda. According to Colebrooke (in Asiatick Res., ix. p. 379, 1807), the Hindu writers on Materia Medica use for the resin of Bosweliia thurifera. the designation Cunduru. A term applied also to the resinous exudation of Pinus longifolia (see Dr E. J. Waring, Pharmacopoeia of India, p. 62, Loud., 1868. the purer the marble the finer appears to be the growth of the tree. The young trees, he states, furnish the most valuable gum, the older yielding merely a clear glutinous lluid resembling copal varnish. To obtain the frankincense a deep incision is made in the trunk of the tree, and below it a narrow strip of bark five inches in length is peeled off. When the milk-like juice ("spuma pinguis," Pliny) which exudes has hardened by exposure to the atmosphere, the incision is deepened. In about three months the resin has attained the required degree of consistency. The season for gathering lasts from May until the first rains in September. The large clear globules are scraped off into baskets, and the inferior quality that has run down the tree is collected separately. The coast of South Arabia is yearly visited by parties of Somalis, who pay the Arabs for the privilege of collecting frankincense. 7 In the interior of the country about the plain of Dhofar, 8 during the south-west monsoon, frankincense and other gums are gathered by the Beni Gurrah Bedouins, and might be obtained by them in much larger quantities ; their lawlessness, however, and the lack of a safe place of exchange or sale are obstacles to the development of trade. (See C. Y. Ward, The Gulf of Aden Pilot, p. 117, 1863.) Much as formerly in the region of Sakhalites in Arabia (the tract between Ras Makalla and Ras Agab), 9 described by Arrian, so now on the sea-coast of the Somali country, the frankincense when collected is stored in heaps at various stations. Thence, packed in sheep and goat-skins, in quantities of 20 to 40 &, it is carried on camels to Berbera, for shipment either to Aden, Makalla, and other Arabian ports, or directly to Bombay. 10 At Bombay, like gum-acacia, it is assorted, and is then packed for re-exporta tion to Europe, China, and elsewhere. 11 Arrian relates that it was an import of Barbarike on the Sinthus (Indus). The idea held by several writers, including Niebuhr, that frank incense was a product of India, would seem to have origin ated in a confusion of that drug with benzoin and other odoriferous substances, and also in the sale of imported frankincense with the native products of India. The gum resin of Bosweliia thurifera was described by Colebrooke (in Asiatick Researches, ix. 381), and after him by Dr J. Fleming (Ib., xi. 158), as true frankincense, or olibanum; from this, however, it differs in its softness, and tendency to melt into a mass 12 (Birdwood, loc. cit., p. 146). It is sold in the village bazaars of Khandeiah in India under the name of Dup-Salai, i.e., incense of the "Salai tree"; and according to Mr F. Porter Smith, M.B. (Contrib. towards the Mat. ^fed. and Nat. Hist, of China, p. 162, Shanghai, 1871), is used as incense in China. The last authority also mentions olibanum as a reputed natural product of China. Bernhard von Breydenbach, 13 Ausonius, Florus, and others, arguing, it would seem, from its Hebrew and Greek names, concluded that olibanum came from Mount Lebanon ; and Chardin (Voyage en Perse, &c., 1711) makes 6 See "Appendix," vol. i. p. 419 of Sir W. C. Harris s Highlands of ^Ethiopia, 2d ed., Lond., 1844; and Trans. Bombay Geog. Soc., xiii., 1857, p. 136. 7 Cruttenden, Trans. Bombay Geog. Soc., vii., 1846, p. 121; S. B. Miles, J. Geog. Soc., 1872. 8 Or Dhafiir. The incense of " Dofar " is alluded to by Camoens, Os Lusiadas, x. 201. 8 H. J. Carter, "Comparative Geog. of the South-East Coast of Arabia," in J. Bombay Branch of R. Asiatic Soc., iii., Jan. 1851, p. 296 ; and Miiller, Geog. Greed Minores, i. p. 278, Paris, 1855. 10 J. Vaughan, Pharm. Journ., xii., 1853, pp. 227-9 ; and Ward, op. cit., p. 97. 11 Peieira, Elem. of Mat. Med., ii. pt. 2, p. 380, 4th ed., 1847. 12 " Bosweliia thurifera," .... says Waring (Pharm. of India, p. 52), " has been thought to yield East Indian olibanum, but there is no reliable evidence of its so doing." 13 " Libanus igitur est mons redolentie & summe aromaticitatis. nam ibi herbe odorifere crescunt. ibi etiam arbores thurifere coalescunt. quaruni giunmi electum olibanum A medicis nuncupatnr." PeriyrU nalio, p. 53, 1502, fol.