784 MISCELLANEOUS. [April 



eat the honey-sweet fruit of the lotus had no more wish to bring 

 tidings nor to come back ; but there he chose to abide with the 

 lotus-eating men, ever feeding on the lotus, and forgetful of his 

 homeward way." Hitherto this seductive fruit has been assumed 

 to be the jujube, or fruit of the zizyphus. But Colonel Play fair 

 remarks that this plant, though common in Algiers, is not to be 

 found in Djerba ; and, besides that, no human being who ever 

 tasted its fruit would care to do so again ; and, in fact, neither man 

 nor animals could subsist on it. But the true lotus, he is convinced^ 

 is the date. The island is covered to this day with date-palms, the 

 fruit is of excellent quality, and exactly described by the epithet 

 " honey sweet," and it is in itself a complete food for man. Besides, 

 he maliciously adds, " the wine made from the sap of the tree is as 

 familiar as the fruit itself, and may have contributed to render the 

 sailors ' oblivious of their homeward way.' " 



A FOSSIL oak has been discovered in the bed of the Ehone — dark 

 as ebony, hard as iron, supposed to have been 3000 years in the 

 bed of the river. This tree is 150 feet high, 58 feet cube, and 

 considerably over 120,000 pounds in weight. This reminds one of 

 other plienomenal trees. As, for example, the oak of AUouville, 

 bearing a chapel in its branches ; the chestnut of J^tna, covering 

 thirty horsemen ; the tree of Augustus, in the hollow of which 

 Caligula gave a dinner to thirty guests ; the plantain of Xerxes, 

 which sheltered himself and one hundred guardsmen ; the plantain 

 of Cos, whose trunk measures 30 feet in circumference, and whose 

 branches are propped up by marble columns. In the churchyard of 

 Haye de Eoutot in Kormandy, there is an immense yew that once 

 covered the whole cemetery. It is 180 years old, and grow-s 

 every day. 



Canadian Forests. — An English traveller, writing on this 

 subject, says : " I was never tired of the forest scenery of America^ 

 the endless diversity of its foliage always preventing it from being 

 monotonous. A stranger gazing for the first time on the unbroken 

 forest is peculiarly struck with admiration at the surprising and, to 

 him, novel scenery it presents — a scenery peculiarly its own. A 

 wide expanse of unknown extent, canopied above by the dark mass 

 of spreading foliage ; countless columns of trunks which, far as the 

 eye can reach, mile after mile, rise tall and erect, supporting that 

 living roof, and long drawn vistas through which the eye seeks in 

 vain to penetrate the depth of the forest solitude; — such is the scene 

 which meets the eye. But it is when the first frost has touched the 

 trees, and the change of colour in the leaves has set in, the forests 

 put on their greatest beauty. Each kind has its own hue — above all 

 the maple— and every hue is lovely. The leaf of the maple, the first 



