M O L
MoLVCCA-Beaw, a name given by Sir Robert Sibbald, in his prodromus:andbyMr.Wallace,inhisdefcriptionoftheOrk- ney-iflands, to a fort of fruit frequently caft on (Bore in the north-weft iflands of Scotland ; efpecially on the coaits molt expofed to the waves of the great ocean. They are called by fome Orkney-beans, and are not the pro- duce of that ifland, or indeed of any other part of Europe, but of America. . .
Sir Hans Sloane procured four fpeaes of them little injured by the fea and found on examination that three of them were the common produce of the ifland of Jamaica ; where he had himfelf gathered them, and defcribed them in his catalogue and hiftory.
The firft fort was a kind of kidney-bean, and the plant which produces it is defcribed by Sir Hans under the name of the great perennial kidney-bean with a great crooked lobe. It is Sfo figured in the Hortus Malabaricus, by the name of Perim Kakuvalli-, and Sir Robert Sibbald alfo calls it Nux Indica ex qua Pyxides pro pulvere Jiernutatorio parant- This is a native of the Eait and Weft-Indies, and is fometimes found thrown on lhore in the county of Kerry in Ireland ; and in fome other places.
A fecond kind of fruit thrown on fhore in the Orkneys, is a very common fruit in Jamaica, known there by the name of the horfe-eye bean ; it has this name from its refembling the eye of fome large animal by reafon of a hilus or welt which fur- rounds it. This is defcribed by many authors, and among the reft by Sir Hans Sloane, in his catalogue of the Jamaica plants ; and is found in many other of the hotter parts, both of the Kail and Weft-Indies.
A third kind of fruit found on thefe fhores, is that called by the people of Jamaica the afh-coloured nickar-nut ; it has this name from its colour, and from its being perfectly round and of the fhape of a nickar or marble, fuch as boys play with : This alfo is common to the Eaft and Weft-Indies. A fourth kind is alfo a Jamaica fruit, with the hiftory of which we are not yet well acquainted ; no body has feen it grow- in", but the fruit itfelf is preferved in many of the collec- tions of the curious, and has been figured and defcribed by Clufius, and others, under the name of a round exotic fruit ridged with four rifing nerves. i
Thefe are the principal kinds of fruit thus tolled on fhore with us ; but how the products of Jamaica, or other parts of A- merica, fhould be brought to the fhores of Scotland and Ire- land, feems not eafy to determine on any certain foundation. It is eafy to conceive, that when they grow by the fides of livers they may fall off from the trees into them, and be thence conveyed into the fea. It is likewife eafy to fee, that when they are thus floating on the furface of the fea they may be carried about by the winds and currents, and be carried a great way ; but their journey this way muft natural- ly be flopped by the main continent of America, and they muft be forced through the gulf of Florida, or the canal ot Bahama, going thence confbntly eaft, and into the Nor*- American fea. This is eafily conceived by a fimilar fadr. which happens every clay : which is, that a kind of fea-lentil, called fargajfo, which grows very plentifully on the rocks about Ja- maica, is wafhed off from thence and carried by the winds and currents, which for the moft part go impetuoufly the fame way, toward the coaft of Florida, and thence into the North- American ocean ; and are there found floating on the furface. Thus far it is eafy to trace our fruits from their native foil ; but how after this they fhould make the reft of their voyage is a great myftery, and not to be accounted for by us, unlels we fuppofe, that as ihips when they go fouth expecl: a trade eafterly wind, and when they come north expect and generally find a wefterly wind, for at leaft two parts in three of the year ; lb we are to fuppofe thefe fruits being brought north by the current from the gulf of Florida, are put into thefe wefterly winds way, and by them conveyed to the coafts of Scotland and Ireland. Philof. Tranf. N°. 222. p. 700.
By the fame means that thefe beans came to Scotland, it is reafonable to believe that the fame winds and currents brought from America thofe feveral things towards the Azores and Porto Santo, which are recorded by Ferdinand Columbus, in the life of his father ; which gave this bold adventurer the firft notions of there being fuch a place as America. The things he mentions as wafhed afhore in this manner, were a piece of wood very ingenioufiy wrought, but evidently with- out the help of iron tools. This was taken up by a Portu- guefe pilot, four hundred and fifty leagues from fhore, off cape St. Vincent, after a weft wind, which had blown violently for many days 1 After this fuch another piece of wood was taken up on the fhores of Porto Santo, after fuch another long and violent weft wind. After this large canes, vaftly fuperior to any of the growth of the then known parts of the world, were found thrown on the fame fhores, and the fruits of pines which did not grow in any known part of the world ; and finally the bodies of two men appearing to be of a diffe- rent nation from any of the known people, and two of their canoes, were driven on fhore on the ifland F'lores, one of Azores. All thefe things having been found only after ftrong and continued weft winds, it appeared very evident, that there Suppl. Vol.11.
M O L
muft be land fomewhere to the weft, where fruits and men were to be found ; and that thefe men had no knowledge of our arts, by their want of iron. It was eafy to fee fronrthis how ufeful we might be to them, if they couid furnifh us with any thing of value. And on this plan was founded the great- eft difcovery of the modern times. MOLY. The name of this plant is rendered famous by Homer, and has been on this occafion much enquired into as to its true fenfe, by the botanifts of almoft all times. The old in- terpreters of Homer all explain this word by the wild rue ; and the only reafon for this is, that at fome time, probably long after the days of Homer, the people of Cappadocia called the wild rue Msly. But this plant is wholly different from the Moly of Homer, which Theophraitus affirms grew in his time in Arcadia, in great plenty, and had a round bulbous root like an onion, and long and graffy leaves like the fquill. The authority of this author, who wrote profeiledly on the fubject of plants, and wrote fo early, is fuffieient to explode the abfurd opinion of the Moly of Homer, being wild rue ; but tho' the commentators are thus eafily fet alide, there is yet another author who will lead into no lefs errors. This is Pliny, who has blended together the accounts of all the writers before him on this fubjecl: ; and as they have contra- di£ted one another^ he has preferved all their contradictions. After telling us the fabulous ftory of its being found out by the god Mercury, and being good againft witchcraft and the like, he tranflates the words of Theophraitus, that it grows about Phineas and Cyllenc, in Arcadia ; and has a round and black root of the fhape of an onion, and leaves like the fquill." To this Theophraitus has added, that it is not however diffi- cult to be dug up, as Homer feems to think; but Pliny, to make Theophraitus and Homer agree at any rate, leaves ouc the word mt in his tranflation, and fays, that it is very dif- ficult to be dug up. Pliny, L. 25. c. 4. The phylicians of Italy, in the time of Pliny, were fond of believing that they had the true Moly of Homer growing in the Campania of Rome ; and Pliny feems to have been alfo wholly convinced of it; and mentions as a reafon of his con- viction, that they had brought to him a root of Moly, which was dug up with prodigious difficulty from among rucks and ftones, and which, when hefaw it, mealured thirty foot lono, yet was not compleat, but broken off at the end ; fo that it might poffibly have been much longer. The author's fkill in botany appears to have been very little, that could make him believe, becaufe of the fingle obfervation of the difficulty of getting it up, that this was the true Moly which he had juft before defcribed from Theophraitus, as having a round root like an onion.
It is probable that this was the root of the faint-foin or lu- cerne, both thefe plants growing wild in Italy, and both hav- ing roots of a prodigious length, probably not lefs than that here mentioned by Pliny ; but that he could fuppofe thefe roots to be of the bulbous kind, fhews an ignorance that but ill agrees with the veneration fome people have for this author. This plant had nothing in common with the Moly of Homer and that of Theophraitus, excepting the difficulty of getting it up, which Theophraitus denys lo be a truth ; and in which probably Homer was mifinformed, as no bulbous root can be very difficult to get up ; but Pliny, that the Roman root might agree with the true Moly-, firft compels Theophraftus againft the letter of his own account, to lay Moly was hard to be dug up, and then makes this a reafon for a p!....t's being the true Moly, which does not appear to have had any one cha- racter in common with it. Nature is uniform in her produc- tions, and tho' a bulbous plant fuch as the Moly of Theo- phraftus, would naturally have graffy leaves, as all bulbous plants have ; yet this long- rooted plant, defcribed by Pliny, in the common courfe of nature could not have fuch, but pro- bably had either pennated or trifoliate leaves. Pliny adds, that the Greek authors have made the flowers of the Moly yellow, whereas Homer fays that they were white ; but it does not appear that this is a juft accufation, for neither any of the Greek writers extant at this time, nor any of the fragments of others which we find recorded, exprefs any fuch thing : On the contrary, the whitenefs of the flower feems to have been always looked upon as one of the great and effen- tial characters of the Moly ; and the wild rue feems to have been fuppofed the Moly of Homer, only becaufe it has white flowers, and roots black on the outfide. The error of Pliny in fuppofing the Greeks to have called the flowers of the Moly yellow, feems to have arifen from a Greek writer hav- ing faid, that the flowers are like thofe of the leucoium, but white as milk. He has probably taken this fentence, but with- out the laft word, and then accufed the author of faying they were like the leucoium flowers in colour, when he only fay* they are fo in fhape.
The author of the Priapeian verfes feems to follow this, and fays, that yellow or gold-coloured flowers arife from the Moly ; but this is by no means confonant to Homer's account, who fays they are white like milk. And fo fay all that have writ- ten after him.
On the whole, the Moly of Homer feems to have been a fpe- cies of allium or garlic. See the article Garlick, fp. 32.
S MOLYB-
