90 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
from the Gulf side of the Island (the waters of which are always ies 
quil) has been justly considered by your Excellency as a great deside- 
ratum. 
“I am happy to say, that I am now able to lay before your Excel- 
lency the most cheering prospects of opening these valuable forests from 
the Gulf, or protected side of the Island. 
“The forests of Mora advance towards and recede from the coast of 
the Gulf of Paria in various places between Point La Brea and Cedros, 
the Rivers Guapo and Irois, which are both navigable for some 
istance. These forests recede some three miles from the coast; but 
about four miles below (to the south) the River Irois, there is another 
tide-serving river, extending some miles into the interior. This 1$ 
called Rio de Clu, and at this point the Mora forests come up to the 
sea-beach. The river has a good entrance: its banks are perfectly 
level, and composed of a hard, white, sandy soil, poor in itself, but 
clothed with a forest such as is rarely seen in any country in point of 
abundance, size, and quality of its timber. 
“ The great peculiarity of a forest of Mora is, that it is a gregarious 
tree, that is, it excludes every other kind of tree, or in other words mo- 
nopolizes the entire soil to itself, like a forest of Pines or Fir-trees in 
northern climates; and this is of immense advantage, because every 
tree is available that is of sufficient size, which is not the case with 
any other timber tree that we have: for example, Poni, Baltata, Cedar, 
_ Sipre, and others,—all excellent timber, but they always occur more or 
less isolated, and require the constant removal of the saw-mill, etc. ; 
while in a forest of Mora, once plant the saw-mill, and you have work 
years, however energetically it may be carried on. 
.. * Logs of Mora may be got in any quantity of from three to four feet 
square, or even larger, if necessary, but those giving two feet square is 
. the commonest size, that is, after the sap-wood is removed, and from 
one hundred feet downwards in length ; logs of eighteen inches to two 
feet square, and fifty to sixty feet long, would be more conveniently 
transported than if they were larger. I measured one fallen tree which 
. was eighty feet to the first branches, and would square over two feet ; 
3 another standing tree I measured which was forty-two feet in cireum- 
. ference at six feet from the ground. The common height of the Mora 
tree is one hundred to one hundred and thirty feet. Tt is the loftiest 
of all our forest trees. I consider that the forest which I have above 
