297 
BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
Extracts from the private letters of Dr. Hooker, written during 
a Botanical Mission to INDIA. 
(Continued. from p. 268.) 
On the following day I determined upon a trip into the Desert, to 
see the Fossil Forest, as a large tract of country covered with fossil 
wood is called. Several of the officers of the “Sidon” joined me, 
of which I was very glad, for they kindly undertook all the provi- 
sioning for the day. We started very early, mounted upon jack- 
asses: I also took a servant to carry my traps, together with two 
mules and attendants to bring back specimens of the wood. Though 
few plants were procurable, I was anxious to make observations on 
the temperature of the soil and dryness of the Desert, that I might 
know how near to the starving and burning point vegetation would 
exist, as supplementary to my many observations in the Antarctic 
Expedition of how much cold they can bear. 
Our course lay to the south of Cairo, along the ridge of hills 
at whose Nileward termination the city is built. These hills are 
of limestone, and so were the first few miles of desert we traversed. 
We emerged from the town at the citadel, about two hundred 
feet above the Nile, the rest of the town, and Great Desert itself. 
The sun was rising when we passed the Palace, and a very grand 
sight it was. It rose from the eastern Desert, hot, orange-red, - 1 - 
and scorching to behold. A few strips of cloud on the horizon 
crossed its upward path, and through them was darted a flood of 
great beams slanting along the parched soil, dancing on the 
polished alabaster Mosque close by us, and shooting across the 
Nile to the Pyramids on the far-west horizon, some ten miles off. 
To the east, south, and south-east, stretched a fiery desert; 
below, we saw the town of Cairo bristling with minarets, and 
the long shining Nile, wending its way from south to north 
through emerald-green pastures, gardens, Date-groves, and scat- 
tered white buildings, its surface spotted with latteen-sailed — 
VOL VII. SE 
