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Ridge. A driving road from Buff Bay on the north coast reaches 

 Silver Hill Gap seven miles from Cinchona and is in process 

 of construction to Chester Vale, three miles nearer. 



2. Climate — A daily record of the temperature, condition of the 

 atmosphere, and rainfall, has been kept for the past twenty-five 

 years, and from the published data we learn that the temperature 

 ranges from about 47 to 74 F., rarely exceeding these limits. The 

 rainfall is about 103 inches, being of course much less than on the 

 northern slope of the range where it locally reaches 100-200 

 inches, though much more than at the really xerophytic portion 

 of the island in the vicinity of Kingston. In general, the month 

 of May and some part of the period from September to November 

 include the principal rainy seasons so-called. 



3. Sanitary Conditions — For ordinary domestic purposes, rain- 

 water accumulated in three large cisterns, furnishes an adequate 

 supply. For drinking purposes and for cooking, water is brought 

 from the source of the Clyde river which forms here a large lim- 

 pid brook rising about six hundred feet below Cinchona. This 

 water is cold, clear, and as nearly absolutely pure as natural water 

 derived from the earth could possibly be. There being no resi- 

 dence other than Cinchona higher than the sources of the stream 

 and no cultivation even above its water-shed, there are absolutely 

 no sources of contamination. 



From a residence at Cinchona at three different periods of the 

 year, January-February, 1903, April, 1903 and September, 1906, 

 the writer can personally testify as to the healthfulness and de- 

 sirability of the location. When we add to an ideal climate the 

 rugged mountain scenery of Jamaica which is spread out in every 

 direction, with the harbour of Port Royal and the golden Carib- 

 bean nearly a mile below, the magnificent and ever-changing 

 cloud effects now above, now below the observer— and about him 

 a well-ordered tropical garden (still maintained as a public garden 

 by the Jamaican government), with tall Eucalyptus, Grevillea, Juni- 

 perus and Podocarpus trees, with tree-ferns and many other tropical 

 plants, and with a wide variety of magnificent rose bushes blos- 

 soming at every season, we have a picture where " every prospect 

 pleases" and where every feature appeals to the esthetic sense and 

 contributes in a marvellous degree to the real pleasure and con- 

 tentment of living. 



4. Flora. — The botanical features of Jamaica are very rich and 

 diversified. In 1893 Mr. Fawcett compiled a list of Jamaica 

 plants largely from Grisebach's Flora of the British West Indies 

 (1864) which enumerated about two thousand species of seed- 

 bearing plants. To this list the persistent field work of Mr. 

 William Harris has added nearly a fourth more. As is well 

 known, the ferns and their allies form an unusual ratio to the 

 seed-bearing plants and Jamaica possesses more species of these 

 groups than any other equivalent area of the entire world. 

 These were studied by the late Mr. Jenman, whose collections 

 became the property of the Garden in 1903. With the later 

 additions made to Jenman's work the number of species exceeds 



