92 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
wading through a mangrove swamp not exceeding two hundred y ards 
of width, struck at once into the forest. The ground there is hard, 
and perfectly level, so that the tram modes of movement are susceptible 
of application from the body of the forest to the edge of the swamp, 
without expensive levelling, and with little or no other charge than the 
felling of the trees and laying down the trams, which might be formed 
of the timber itself, 
“The forest consists almost exclusively of Mora, and I have no 
doubt, from the accounts I have received from authentic sources of 
information, that it is the western extremity of the great belt of tim- 
ber-lands running parallel with the whole southern shores of the colony, 
and extending upwards along large parts of its eastern side. 
“Tt is the nature of this noble tree to carry its substance in straight 
columns, free of branches, to great heights, and I saw several which 
would, I think, have squared at least two feet, in lengths of upwards 
of seventy feet. In the absence of exact enumeration, I am unable to 
speak positively as to the average number of merchantable trees to the 
acre, but I may remark generally, that the number and the weight of 
those prodigious masses of hard timber was one of the most amazing 
proofs of vegetative vigour which I have ever witnessed. 
“ Having now convinced myself of the ease of access to this timber, 
of the facility with which it may be shipped at all seasons of the year, 
and of the immediate returns to the moderate amounts of capital which 
would be requisite for the working of the forest in the most effective 
manner, I feel well warranted in confirming the impressions of the 
= great value signified in my despatch before alluded to. 
— . “I shall of course do what I can, without loss of time, to render 
— the timber available for our own contemplated public buildings. 
-~ “T hope in the course of a few weeks to be able to forward to the 
. Surveyor-General of the Navy, the whole section of a tree of consider- 
able magnitude.—I have, ete., CHARLES Euuior.” 
Note from Six Joun Bownrxa, relating to the flowering of the RICE- 
Parer Puant, dated Hongkong, Dec. 2, 1854 (which was accom- 
panied by a flowering specimen). 
.  *This is one of your desiderata—the flower of the Rice-Paper Plant. 
'The said flowers grow in wand-like branches, some of them four feet 
