454 Natural History in foreign Countries : — 



plants, there is one, that for magnificence and beauty stands 

 unrivalled and alone. We have seen it on the middle and 

 southern waters ; but of the greatest size and splendour on 

 the bayous and lakes of the Arkansas. It has different 

 popular names. The upper Indians call it panocco. We 

 have seen it designated by botanists by the name A^ymphae'a 

 Nelumbo, It rises from a root resembling the large stump of 

 a cabbage, and from depths in the v^^ater of 2 or 3 to 10 ft. 

 It has an elliptical, smooth, and verdant leaf, some of the 

 largest being of the size of a parasol. These muddy bayous 

 and stagnant waters are often so covered with these leaves, 

 that the sandpiper walks abroad on the surface of the leaves 

 without dipping her feet in the water. The flowers are en- 

 larged copies of the A^ymphae^a odorata, or New England 

 pond-lily. They have a cup of the same elegant conform- 

 ation, and all the brilliant white and yellow of that flower. 

 They want the ambrosial fragrance of the pond- lily, and re- 

 semble, in this respect, as they do in their size, the flowers of 

 the laurel magnolia. On the whole, they are the largest 

 and most beautiful flowers that we have seen. They have 

 their home in dead lakes, in the centre of cypress swamps. 

 Musquitoes swarm above; obscene fowls wheel their flight 

 over them ; alligators swim above their roots ; and moccasin 

 snakes bask on their leaves. In such lonely and repulsive 

 situations, under such circumstances, and for such spectators, 

 is arrayed the most gaudy and brilliant display of flowers in 

 the creation. In the capsule are embedded from four to six 

 acorn-shaped seeds, which the Indians roast and eat when 

 green ; or they are dried and eaten as nuts, or are pulverised 

 into meal and form a kind of bread. (Flint's Geog. and 

 History of the Western States, vol. i. p. 89, 90.) 



Gold in the United States, — Several years since (1803), 

 gold was ploughed up in Cabarrus Count}', North Carolina, in 

 the bottom of a small stream which falls into Rocky River, 

 a principal branch of the Pedee. The masses were of different 

 sizes, from small grains to that of a mass weighing a quarter 

 of a hundred avoirdupois. This large piece, when melted 

 and refined, lost only 1 5 per cent of its weight. Up to the 

 year 1807} the value of gold from North Carolina, brought 

 to the United States' mint in Philadelphia, amounted to 

 14,310 dollars.* Since that, the precious metal has been 

 found in several counties of the state. Sometimes it is 

 ploughed up, but oftener embedded in rocks, from which it is 

 obtained by blowing them up. Hunting of gold is at length 

 become a serious business, and works are erected to refine it. 



* Mease's Geological Account of the United States, p. 415. 



