Natural History. 415 



electricity, and I am acquainted with several persons who are able, 

 from a certain premonitory feeling of their weak eyes, to predict a 

 thunder-storm, infallibly, a considerable time beforehand. As 

 every experienced oculist is convinced of the bad effects of an atmos- 

 phere of this kind, he will never extract the cataract during the 

 approach of a thunder-storm *. 



7. NATIVE COUNTRY OP THE POTATOE. 



The following observations are made upon this highly interesting 

 subject by Mr. Cruickshanks, in Dr. Hooker's Botanical Miscellany. 

 Mr. Lambert, in the tenth volume of Brande's Journal, and in the 

 appendix to his splendid work on the genus Pinus, has collected 

 many valuable facts which prove that the potatoe is found wild in 

 several parts of America, and among others in Chili and Peru. Don 

 Jose* Pavon, in a letter to Mr. Lambert, says, 4 The Solatium tube- 

 rosum grows wild in the environs of Lima, and fourteen leagues 

 from Lima on the coast ; and I myself have found it in the kingdom 

 of Chili,' and Mr. Lambert adds, * I have lately received from 

 Mr. Pavon very fine wild specimens of Solanum tuberosum, collected 

 by himself in Peru.' There is also a note from Mr. Lambert on the 

 same subject, in the third volume of the NewEdin. Phil. Journ., with 

 an extract from a letter of Mr. Caldcleugh, who sent tubers of the 

 wild plant, some years ago, from Chili to the Horticultural Society. 



But it is frequently objected, that in some of those countries where 

 the potatoe is found wild, it may, like many other species met with in 

 that state in America, be an introduced, not an indigenous plant. There 

 are, however, many reasons for believing that it is really indigenous in 

 Chili, and that wild specimens found there have not been accidentally 

 propagated from any cultivated variety. In that country it is gene- 

 rally found in steep, rocky places, where it could never have been 

 cultivated, and where its accidental introduction is almost impossible. 

 It is very common about Valparaiso, and I have noticed it along the 

 coast for fifteen leagues to the northward of that port ; how much 

 farther it may extend north or south, I know not. It chiefly inhabits 

 the cliffs and hills near the sea, and I do not recollect to have seen 

 it at more than two or three leagues from the coast. But there is one 

 peculiarity in the wild plant that I have never seen noticed in print, that 

 its flowers are always pure white* free from the purple tint so common 

 in the cultivated varieties, and this, I think, is a strong evidence of 

 its native origin. Another proof may be drawn from the fact, that 

 while it is often met with in mountainous places, remote from culti- 

 vated ground, it is not seen in the immediate neighbourhood of the 

 fields and gardens where it is planted, unless a stream of water run 

 through the ground, which may carry tubers to uncultivated spots. 



Having observed the distribution of this and other plants through 

 the agency of the streams employed for irrigating the land, I am led 

 to think, that the wild specimens found near Lima may have had 



* Med. Journ,, 1831, p. 76. 



