504 THE ELECTRIC TREE OF NEW GUINEA. [Dec. 



operation is done us upon the manner in which it is done. Great 

 hurt may come to the tree through want of timely pruning. 

 Pruning is a most elaborate and a critical operation, requiring both 

 skill and care. 



Perhaps it is not possible to concur in all that Count de Cars 

 says on pruning ; nevertheless, on the whole his " Book " is an 

 excellent " work " and guide on the subject, deserving the very best 

 attention of all foresters, and worthy the study of all students of 

 Forestry seeking to widen their knowledge in one of the most delicate 

 operations of practical Forestry. 



James Farquiiaeson, 



Forester, Glendye. 



THE ELECTRIC TREE OF NEW GUINEA. 



THE following is going the round of the papers at present, and 

 we give it for what it is worth, merely remarking that it is too 

 much on a par with many other unrealized wonders of New Guinea 

 for us to accept without reserve. It has a Munchawsenish smack 

 with it, and we shall wait with patience further developments 

 regarding this to our mind somewhat uncanny tree. The fact that 

 " Dr. Kummel is much puzzled to account for the existence of this 

 singular tree by any process of natural selection," is very interesting 

 as reflecting on the doctor's facility for being puzzled. One would 

 naturally think that his own experience with a little bit of " core," 

 would have suggested to him the process by which his newly discovered 

 tree has been selected by nature as the fittest in the region it 

 occupies. The tree that could send a German doctor rolling and 

 yelling on the ground, and cause him to lose his spectacles, appears 

 to us to be eminently capable of taking care of itself, and of holding 

 its own in the struggle for existence : — 



" One of the German expeditions to New Guinea has just 

 made a startling discovery. It has, of course, been perfectly 

 well known, and is indeed one of the great principles of modern 

 science, that force, or energy, is not only indestructible, but 

 transformable, as, for instance, the heat energy of steam is trans- 

 formed into the energy of visible motion by the steam engine, and 

 that again into the form of energy which we call electricity, by the 

 dynamo. So, again, it is of course familiar that the peculiar force, 

 whatever it is, which we call vital is partly transformed into weak 

 electric currents along the nerves of men and other animals, an 

 extreme instance occurring in the well-known electric eel which 

 gives a really powerful discharge of electricity. Now, hitherto in 



