in the public service, and complete freedom from corruption, were equally admirable and conspicuous. His religious writings, apart from his constant devotion to toleration and dislike of a state church, are exceedingly obscure both in style and matter, while his enthusiasm and fanaticism in speculative doctrine combine curiously, but not perhaps incongruously, with exceptional sagacity and shrewdness in practical affairs. "He had an unusual aspect," says Clarendon, "which ... made men think there was something in him of the extraordinary; and his Whole life made good that imagination." Besides the works already mentioned and several printed speeches, Vane wrote: A Brief Answer to a certain Declaration of John Winthrop (reprinted in the Hutchinson Papers, publ. by the Prince Society, 1865); A Needful Corrective or Balance in Popular Government ... in answer to Harrington's Oceana; Of Love of God and Union with God; two treatises, viz. (1) An Epistle General to the Mystical Body of Christ on Earth, (2) The Face of the Times: A Pilgrimage into the Land of Promise . . . (1664). The Trial of Sir Henry Vane, Knight (1662), contains, besides his last speech and details relating to the trial, The People's Case Stated (reprinted in Forster's Life of Vane), The Valley of Jehoshaphat, and Meditations concerning Man's Life. A Letter from a True and Lawful Member of Parliament to one of the Lords of His Highness's Council (1656), attributed to Vane, was written by Clarendon; and The Light Shining out of Darkness was probably by Henry Stubbe; while The Speech against Richard Cromwell is the composition of some contemporary pamphleteer.
Bibliography.—Article by C. H. Firth in Dict, of Nat. Biog.; Life and Death of Sir Henry Vane, by G. Sikes, 1662 (a treatise on the "course of his hidden life"); and Lives by John Forster, in Lardner's Cabinet Encyclopaedia: Eminent British Statesmen, vol. iv. (1838); by C. W. Upham in "Library of American Biography," vol. iv. (1851); by J. K. Hosmer (1888); and by C. Dalton in Hist. of the Family of Wray (1881), ii. 93-137; also Wood's Ath. Oxon. (Bliss), iii. 578, and Biographia Britannica. See especially S. R. Gardiner's Hist. of England, his Great Civil War and his Commonwealth, and Clarendon's Hist, of the Rebellion, and the contemporary memoirs and diaries; Hist. MSS. Comm. MSS. of duke of Buccleuch, ii. pt. ii. 756; Masson's Life of Milton, iv. 442 and passim; the sonnet addressed by Milton to Vane; and W. W. Ireland, Life of Sir Henry Vane the Younger (1907).
VANE (formerly spelt "fane," i.e. pennon, flag; cf. Ger. Fahne, Du. vaan, Fr. girouette, Ital. banderuola, Ger. Wetterjahne), the weathercock on a steeple. Vanes seem in early times to have been of various forms, as dragons, &c; but in the Tudor period the favourite design was a beast or bird sitting on a slender pedestal and carrying an upright rod, on which a thin plate of metal is hung like a flag, ornamented in various ways.
VAN HORNE, SIR WILLIAM CORNELIUS (1843-), Canadian financier, was born in Will county, Illinois, U.S.A., on the 3rd of February 1843, of Dutch descent. He was educated in the common schools of the state, and in 1857 began work as office boy in a railway station. His ability and force brought him to the front, and he rose till in 1881 he was appointed general manager of the Canadian Pacific railway. For the successful completion of this great road his strong will and mental grasp were largely responsible, and he it was who not only controlled but steadily extended its operations during the lean years which followed. In 1884 he became vice-president of the line, in 1888 president, and in 1899 chairman of the board of directors. From 1885 onward he was more and more associated with every branch of Canadian mercantile and financial life, and as a publicist gave shrewd expression to his views on political and economic questions. After the Spanish-American War (1898) he became one of the chief promoters of railway and industrial enterprise in Cuba. In May 1894 he was knighted by Queen Victoria in acknowledgment of bis distinguished public services. He was also known as a patron of art and literature and an amateur painter of no little merit.
VANILLA, a flavouring agent largely used in the manufacture of chocolate, in confectionery and in perfumery. It consists of the fermented and dried pods of several species of orchids belonging to the genus Vanilla.[1] The great bulk of the commercial article is the produce of V. planifolia, a native of south-eastern Mexico, but now largely cultivated in several tropical countries, especially in Bourbon, the Seychelles, Tahiti and Java. The plant has a long fleshy stem and attaches itself by its aerial rootlets to trees; the roots also penetrate the soil and derive a considerable portion of their nourishment from it. The leaves are alternate, oval-lanceolate and fleshy; the light greenish flowers form axillary spikes. The fruit is a pod
.png)
Vanilla Plant (Vanilla planifolia). A, shoot with flower, leaf and aerial rootlets; B, pod or fruit.
from 6 to 10 in. long, and when mature about half an inch in diameter. The wild plant yields a smaller and less aromatic fruit, distinguished in Mexico as Baynilla cimarona, the cultivated vanilla being known as B. corriente.
Vanilla was used by the Aztecs of Mexico as an ingredient in the manufacture of chocolate before the discovery of America by the Spaniards, who adopted its use. The earliest botanical notice is given in 1605 by Clusius (Exoticorum Libri Decern), who had received Fruits from Hugh Morgan, apothecary to Queen Elizabeth; but he seems to have known nothing of its native country or uses. The Mexican vanilla had been introduced to cultivation before the publication of the second edition of Philip Miller's Gardeners' Dictionary (1739). It was reintroduced by the marquis of Blandford, arid in 1807 a flowering specimen was figured and described by' R. A: Salisbury [Paradisus, London, t. 82). Mexican vanilla is regarded as the best. It is principally consumed in the United States. In Bourbon about 3000 acres are under cultivation; the crop is sent to Bordeaux, the chief centre of the trade in France. Its odour is said to differ from the Mexican variety in having a suggestion of tonqua bean. The Seychelles produce large quantities of exceedingly fine quality, the produce of these islands goes chiefly to the London market. The Java vanilla, grown chiefly in Krawang and the Preanger Regencies, is shippea to Holland. The Tahiti produce is inferior in quality.
Mr Hermann Mayer Senior, in the Chemist and Druggist, June 30, 1900, gives the following figures, which approximately represent the world's output of vanilla during the seasons 1905-1906: Bourbon, 70 tons; Seychelles, 45 tons; Mauritius, 5 tons; Comores, Mayotte, Madagascar, &c, 120 tons; Guadeloupe, Java, Ceylon and Fiji, 10 tons; Mexica, 70 tons; Tahiti, 100 tons—total, about 420 tons.
The best varieties of vanilla pods are of a very dark chocolate brown or nearly black colour, and are covered with a crystalline efflorescence technically known as givre, the presence of which is taken as a criterion of quality. The peculiar fragrance of vanilla is due to vanillin, C8H8O3, which forms this efflorescence. Chemically speaking, it is the aldehyde of methyl-protocatechuic acid. It is not naturally present in the fleshy exterior of the pod, but is secreted by hair-like papillae lining its three internal angles, and ultimately becomes diffused through the viscid oily liquid surrounding the seeds. The amountof vanillin varies according to the kind: Mexican vanilla yields l.69, Bourbon or Reunion 1.9 to 2-48, and Java 2.75%. Besides vanillin, the pods contain vanillic acid (which is odourless), about 11% of fixed oil, 2.3% of soft resin, sugar, gum and oxalate of lime.
Vanillin forms crystalline needles, fusible at 81° C, and soluble in alcohol, ether and oils, hardly soluble in cold, but more so in boiling water. Like other aldehydes, it forms a compound with the alkaline bisulphites, and can by this means be extracted from bodies containing it. Vanillin has been found in Siam benzoin and in raw sugar, and has been prepared artificially from coniferin, a glucoside found in the sapwood of fir-trees, from asafoetida, and from a constituent of oil of cloves named eugenol, It is from the last-named that vanillin is now prepared on a commercial scale, chiefly in Germany. Vanillin does not appear to have any physiological action on human beings when taken in small doses, as much as 10 to 15 grains having been administered without noxious results. On small animals, however, such as frogs, it appears to act as a convulsive, It has been suggested as a stimulant of an excito-motor character in atonic dyspepsia. It is a constituent of Günzburg's reagent (phloro-vanillin-glucin) for the detection of free hydrochloric acid in the gastric contents. The poisonous effects
- ↑ Span, vainilla, dim. of vaina, a pod.
