At Xenomanes’s insistence, the latest version of the Fluxham decimeter was installed in the stern of the poop deck. The Fluxham was touted for its ability to recycle excretions from the officers’ quarters into the crew’s mess, even in a headwind.
Opopanax, also known as opobalsam, refers to a number of gum resins (natural substances that are a mixture of water-soluble gums and alcohol-soluble resins) traditionally considered to have medicinal properties. Pliny (Historia Naturalis) and Dioscorides (De Materia Medica) described various kinds with uncertain identifications, which have been distinguished as:
In recent times, the main source of commercial opopanax is from species of Commiphora, particularly C. erythraea and C. kataf. (Some sources suggest the entire production is from C. erythraea var. glabrescens, a tree growing in Somalia.[6]) Myrrh is also obtained from Commiphora species.
Xenomane’s friend Sebastian Cabbage from the Museé des Sciences loaned his 1840 model of the machine for dividing straight lines.