BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 177 
with such encouragement from the Botanists of this country, 
as may enable him to prosecute his researches upon a more 
extended scale. Mr. Mathews has excellent opportunities 
of determining the plants of Ruiz and Pavon, partly by a 
knowledge of their localities, and partly by their works which 
he possesses, as well as by many of their unpublished drawings 
and their original named specimens, which he has been so 
fortunate as to meet with in the country. Every one of his 
specimens is accompanied by a label with the exact station 
and the name as far as he is able to determine it. 
In Chili Mr. Bridges is most industriously employed as a 
Collector, and our last communication from him consists of 
a valuable package of plants from Valdivia, a highly inter- 
esting and very little known province in the south of Chili, 
inhabited by the Araucanians, the finest and most independ- 
ent race of Indians in S. America. He visited the country 
under very favourable circumstances, accompanying a party 
with the Commissary of the Indians, as far as the Cordillera of 
the Valdivia, in order to stop one of the passes to the Pampas 
of Buenos Ayres, and thus to prevent the Pehuatche tribe from 
intruding on the western side of the Andes. Before coming 
to the mountains, they had to pass a table-land, constituted by 
immense plains, similar to those of Santiago de Chili, and ap- 
parently such as extend along the whole length of Chili and 
Peru, and affording many excellent plants. Approaching 
nearer to the Cordillera, they arrived at the lake of Runco, the 
beauty of which, Mr. Bridges says, it is impossible to describe. 
Its computed length is 15 or 20 leagues, and it is of nearly 
the same breadth; including many islands, the largest of 
which is inhabited by several families of Indians. The mar- 
gins of the lake too are peopled, though thinly, and the houses 
are always situated in a grove of apple-trees. The produce 
of this journey, so far as regards Botany alone, has been 
nearly 300 species of plants, in a very high state of preserva- 
. tion, and several sets havé been already sent to the subscribers 
. in England. Among them are a new and very distinct 
Species of Anemone found in damp woods near the coast, 
SEcoND SznrEs. Z 
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