506 THE ELECTRIC TREE OF NEW GUINEA. [Dec. 



absolutely without inhabitants. When we had got some 100 miles 

 inland, a journey which took no less than twelve days' hard work, 

 and had reached an elevation of about 5000 feet, being, in fact, on 

 one of the northern spurs of the great central range, we encamped 

 for the night in a more open country than we had hitherto seen. 

 Our way in the morning was on an ever-ascending slope through 

 park-like scenery, not only beautiful in itself, but a very refreshing 

 change from our previous experiences. Towards noon I stopped 

 under a large tree which seemed to particularly attract the 

 attention of Kummel, who had been finding all kinds of novelties 

 the whole morning, to take the exact bearings of a high peak which 

 was visible through an opening in front of us. To my surprise, the 

 compass seemed utterly drunk, varying in all directions in the most 

 capricious manner at each movement I took. I called Kummel's 

 attention to this, and he said jokingly that we must have arrived 

 at Sinbad's loadstone rock. I tried a variety of experiments, and 

 found that, on walking into the open, the disturbances became feebler, 

 but did not entirely cease for some distance. Whilst we were 

 discussing the matter, one of the men, who carried a heavy cutlass 

 or machete for clearing the path, struck one of a number of pecu- 

 liar buttresses which ran up the outside of the tree, splitting off 

 a large slice, and severing a curious-looking black core some half an 

 inch thick, which formed the centre. Kummel, in his scientific 

 curiosity, ran up, placed his hands on the two ends of the core to 

 , look at it more closely, and instantly, to my utter astonishment, 

 gave a yell and rolled head over heels, getting up without his 

 spectacles, and stammering to me that he had had a severe electric 

 shock. One of the men was induced to repeat the experiment with 

 similar results. I had no galvanometer, but improvised one with 

 a length of copper wire, the centre of which I formed into an open 

 spiral round my compass, and on inserting the ends of the wire 

 into the opposite sides of the black matter, the needle was 

 violently deflected, showing conclusively that a very considerable 

 current was passing. Every branch and every twig of the tree, 

 which I can assure you we treated with much respect, presented 

 similar ridges and cores, with the addition of a thicker central one, 

 and I quickly proved that the current circulated through the entire 

 system. How it is kept up, no one can at present tell ; but there 

 it is. I am not able to say what the intensity or the quantity of 

 the current might have l)een, but it was enough to knock you down 

 in a very unpleasant way. We made a lot of more experiments on 

 the tree, and would have cut it down, but it seemed a dangerous 

 job to undertake. We saw a great many more of the same 

 kind farther on, quite a forest, in fact ; but I was that night 



