portant engineering works, and was often i-equested to give his opinion and evidence on the improvement of canals, harbours, ports, and rivers, the making of railways, and designs for bridges. His face was well known in the com mittee rooms at Westminster. Among his works may be mentioned the Oxford canal, the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal, the improvement of the River Severn, the Bite docks at Cardiff, the Black Sluice drainage and its outfall sluice at Boston harbour, the Middlesborough docks and coal drops in the Tees, and the South-Eastern Railway, of which ha was chief engineer. His advice was often asked about proposed alterations on the Thames, Tees, Tyne, Ouse, Weaver, Nene, Witham, and Welland ; and he submitted important reports on these rivers. He was a number of commission for the improvement of the Shannon, in which capacity he did good service. On the Croydon Railway he applied the atmospheric system of traction ; and on the Great Northern Railway, constructed by his son Mr Joseph Cubitt, he effected many valuable improvements. On the Continent, too, his opinion was much valued. The Hanoverian Government consulted him about the harbour and docks at Harburg ; the water-works of the city of Berlin were constructed under his immediate superin tendence ; his report on the proposed Paris and Lyons railway had much weight in determining what offer was to be accepted ; and he was consulting engineer for the line of railway from Boulogne to Amiens. Among his later works we may mention two large floating landing stages at Liverpool, and the bridge for carrying the London turnpike
across the Madway at Rochester.In 1350 he was consulted by Sir Robert Peel in regard to a building in Hyde Park for the International Exhibition. His name is identified with the ordinal plan ; and he gave such high satisfaction that Hir Majesty was graciously pleased to confer the honour of knighthood on him in 1852. Ultimately Sir Joseph Paxton s plan was adopted, with the approval of Mr Cabitt. Public recognition, sometimes withheld in the case of literary man, is generally ample in the case of those who devote themselves to practical useful ness. Cabitt accordingly was chosen a fellow of the Royal Society in 1830 ; he was also a fellow of the Royal Irish Academy, a msmbar of the Society of Arts, and of the In stitution of Civil Engineers, of which he became successively a member of council in 1831, vice-president in 1836, and president in 1850 and 1851. In 1853, after a singularly arduous and successful caresr, he retired from public business ; but he never ceased to take an interest in engineering work till his death, which took place on the 13th October 1861, at his house on Clapham Common, London.
CUCA, or Coca. (Erythroxylon Coca), is a plant of the natural order Erytkroxylaceoe, the leaves of which are used as a masticatory in the western countries of South America.[1] It resembles a blackthorn bush, and grows to a height of 6 or 8 feet. Tha branches are straight, and tha leaves, which have a lively green tint, are thin, opaque, oval, tap2ring at the extremities, and similar to tea-leaves ; on each side of the strong mid-rib is a longitudinal vein. Good samples of the dried leaves are uncurled, are of a cbep green on the upper, and a grey-green on the lower sur face, and have a strong tea-like odour ; when chewed they produce a sense of warmth in the mouth, and have a pleasant, pungent tasta. Bad specimens have a camphora- ceous smell and a brownish colour, and lack the pungent taste. The flowers are small, and disposed in little clusters on short stalks ; the corolla is composed of five yellowish- white petals, the anthers are heart-shaped, and the pistils are three in number. The flowers are succeeded by red berries. The seeds are sown in December and January in small plots (almacigas) sheltered from the sun, and the young plants when from 1 J, to 2 feet in height are placed in holes (aspi), or, if the ground is level, in furrows (uachos) in carefully-weeded soil. The plants thrive bc.~t in hot, damp situations, such as the clearings of forests ; but the leaves most preferred are obtained in drier localities, on the sides of hills. The leaves are gathered from plants varying in age from one and a half to upwards of forty years. They are considered ready for plucking when they break on being bent. The first and most abundant harvest is in March, after the rains ; the second is at the end of June, the third in October or November. The green leaves (matu] are spread in thin layers on coarse woollen cloths and dried in the sun ; they are then packed in sacks, which, in order to preserve the quality of the leaves, must be kept from damp.
It has been estimated that cuca is used by about 8,000,000 of the human race, being consumed in Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Rio Negro. In Peru the Indians carry a leathern pouch (the chuspa, or huallqui) for the leaves, and a supply of pulverized unslaked lime, or a preparation of the ashes of the quinoa plant (Chenopodium quinoa), called llipta or llucta. Three or four times a day labour is suspended for chacchar or acullicar, as the mastication of cuca is termed. The leaves, deprived of their stalks, are chewed and formed into a ball (acullico) in the mouth ; a small quantity of the lime or llipta is then applied to the acullico to give it a proper relish. Two or three ounces of cuca are thus daily consumed by each Indian.
Cuca is a powerful stimulant of the nervous system ; it enables fatigue to be borne with less nourishment and greater ease than ordinarily, and diminishes the difficulty of breathing in ascending mountains ; when used externally it is said to be a remedy for rheumatism and headache.
The poet Cowley represents the Indian " Pachamma " as addressing Venus thus:—
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" Our Varicocha first this Coca sent, Endow d with Leaves of wondrous Nourishment, Whose Juice succ d in, and to the Stomach tak n Long Hunger and long Labour can sustain ; From which our faint and weary Bodies find More Succour, more they chear the drooping Mind, Than can your Bacchus and your Ceres join d. Three Leaves supply for six days inarch afford The Quitoita with this Provision stor d Can pass the vast and cloudy Andes o er." (Plants, bk. v. p. 121, Works, 9th ed. Lond. 1700.
habit of cuca-chewiug to be as dangerous to the health as opium-eating, and in the highest degree pernicious, aud Mr J. A. Lloyd alludes to cuca as a " poisonous narcotic " (Journ. R. Geog. Soc., 1854, p. 260). It does not, however, appear from the writings of Garcilasso that he observed any ill results among the Peruvian Indians from the practice of cuca-chewing. Von Tschudi refers to numerous instances of their longevity and good health, notwithstand ing the habit, almost from boyhood, of masticating cuca three times a day. Markham regards cuca as the least injurious, and the most soothing and invigorating of all the narcotics used by man ; and Dr Archibald Smith (Peru as it is, London, 1839) states that cuca when fresh and good, and used in moderate quantity, increases nervous energy, removes drowsiness, enlivens the spirits, and enables the Indian to bear cold, wet, great bodily exertion, and even want of food, to a surprising degree, with apparent ease
and impunity. Though it is said, if taken to excess, to
- ↑ Garcilasso de la Vega, writing of the plant, says that it is called cucx by the Indians, coca by the Spaniards ; and Father Bias Valera states that tha leaves are called cuca both by Indians and Spaniards. (Thi Riyzl Commentaries of the Yncas, 1609-1617 ; trans, by C. R. Markham, Hakluvt Soc., 1871). See also, on the name cuca, Christison, Brit. Med. Journ., April 29, 1876, p. 527.
