Their exterior surface is covered with a green skin; and in the centre there is a large round seed or _stone_, extremely hard and woody, with an uneven surface. This stone is used for the marking of linen. The cloth is held or tied over the stone; and the letters are pricked by a needle, through the cloth, into the outer covering of the stone. By this means it is stained of an indelible reddish brown colour, in the direction along which the needle has passed. The _leaves_ are used by the negroes medicinally. 132. _SASSAFRAS is the wood of a North American tree of the bay tribe_ (Lauras sassafras), _and is imported into Europe in long straight pieces, which are of light and porous texture, and covered with a rough fungous bark._ _This tree is sometimes twenty or thirty feet high. The branches are crooked, and the leaves various, both in form and size, some of them being oval and entire, and others having two or three lobes. They are pale green, and downy beneath. The flowers, which are of a dingy yellow colour, appear in pendant spikes._ This _wood_ has a fragrant smell, and an aromatic and somewhat acrid, though sweetish taste, that are also observable in the _bark_, the smaller _twigs_, and the _roots_, all of which are imported into this country as well as the wood. Infusions and decoctions of sassafras are frequently taken as a medicine for improving the tone of the stomach and bowels, in persons whose humours are in a vitiated state. Soon after its introduction into Europe, in the year 1560, this medicine was in such high repute as to be sold, on the Continent, at the rate of fifty livres per pound; and its virtues were extolled in numerous publications that were written on the subject. It is, however, now considered of little importance; and sassafras is seldom employed but in conjunction with other medicines, which, in their nature, are more powerful. Infusions of sassafras are sold in the streets of London, under the name of _saloop_. We are informed that, in many parts of America, where the sassafras trees not only grow in great numbers in the woods, but are planted along the fences of enclosures, it is not unusual to make bed-posts of the wood, for the purpose of expelling bugs. Its powerful scent drives away these disagreeable insects; and some persons put chips of sassafras into their wardrobes and chests, to prevent the attack of moths. This wood serves for the posts of enclosures, to which, by its lasting nature in the ground, it is peculiarly adapted. The _bark_ of the sassafras tree is used by the American women for dyeing worsted, which it does of a permanent and beautiful orange colour. 133. _The CASHEW NUT is a small kidney-formed nut, which grows at the extremity of a somewhat pear-shaped Indian fruit._