338 ANNUAL RECORD OJF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



After seven centuries, this sacred edifice, which has defied the 

 elements and encroachments of age, lias been suddenly found 

 to be on the versxe of destruction. The seeds of the banian 

 and peepul tree have got under the foundations; the whole 

 fabric has been loosened. The ruin was first indicated by 

 the fall of some large stones, just after the idols had left the 

 temple on the last car-festival. Had they fallen a few minutes 

 before, they would have been smashed to atoms. This catas- 

 trophe has, as may be imagined, caused great consternation, 

 and is likely to have a disastrous effect on the prestige of the 

 srreat Jugsrernauth. It is a curious coincidence that the most 

 celebrated Hindoo temple should have been thus undermined 

 by trees held sacred, if not divine, by the whole Hindoo nation. 



History of Heliantlnis Tuberosus, or Jerusalem Artichoke. 



The question as to the country from which the Jerusalem 

 artichoke originally came has been the subject of a cor- 

 respondence in the American Journal of Science between 

 Professor Gray and Mr. J. H. Trumbull. Linnaeus, in the 

 " Species Plantarum," gave to Helianthus tuberosus the "ha- 

 bitat in Brasilia." In his earlier "Hortus Cliffortianus" the 

 habitat assigned was Canada. De Candolle, in his " Geo- 

 graphic Botanique," refers to this as "decidedly an error 

 at least as to Canada properly so called" and assigns good 

 reasons for the opinion that it did not come from Brazil, nor 

 from Peru, but in all probability from Mexico or the United 

 States. In the second edition of the "Manual of Botany of 

 the Northern United States," Professor Gray stated that 

 in his opinion II. doronicoides of the Western States was 

 most probably the original of H. tuberosus. Mr. Trumbull, 

 after quoting several instances where the Jerusalem arti- 

 choke is reported as coming from Canada, says, "The notices 

 by early voyagers of ground-nuts eaten by the Indians are 

 generally so brief and so vague that it is not easy to distin- 

 guish the three or four species mentioned under that name 

 or its equivalents. The Solarium tuberosum, Apios tuberosa, 

 Aralia tri folia, and a Cyperus were all "ground-nuts" or 

 "earth-nuts." Brereton, in his account of Gosnold's voyage 

 to New England in 1G02, notes the "great store of ground- 

 nuts" found on all the Elizabeth Islands. They grow "forty 

 together on a string, some of them as big as a hen's egg." 



