Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1884 — Manna in the Wilderness. [ARTICLE]

Manna in the Wilderness.

Botanists and travelers have been rather unsuccessful in attempts to ascertain the origin of different kinds of manna known in commerce. In the valley of Gohr, to the south of the Dead Sea, sixteen hours onward which leads into a long valley, Buckhart found what he called manna dropping from twigs of several kinds of trees. According to his representations, Arabs collect it and make it into cakes, which are eaten with their nauseous butter made from the milk of sheep. They churn it thus: A goat-skin is filled with milk and suspended between two poles, swung to and fro by pulling an attached cord until it assumes a new character—a greasy, soapy mass —and that is Arab butter. Mr. Turner found a grove of tamarisk trees near Mt. Sinai, in the valley of Farran, which furnish what the monks call manna. They were bushy, about ten feet high, from which drops of sweetish thick fluid oozed. If taken early in the morning, before the sun is up, it may be kept in earthen pots a considerable time. It is used in lieu of sugar in the convent. Commercial manna, principally in the hands of druggists, is a product of the punctured stems of the omus Europa, growing in Calabria. An article very similar in appearance and medical properties is procured in Sicily by the same kind of process. Both have a sweetish taste, are soft, of a pale yellowish color, and used for their mild laxative'quality rather than food. From the foregoing facts it is very clear there is not the slightest resemblance to that extraordinary nutritious article which was miraculously provided for the children of Israel in a barren wilderness on a memorable occasion, while in their forty years’ peregrinations toward the promised land.