Chips and Slips. 447 



of Hull, were the plaintiffs, and Messrs. Ludendorff and Co., of Stettin, the 

 defendants. The plaintiffs claimed damages for defects in a cargo of oak 

 timber, (,« the Theiis, purchased from the defendants, it being alleged that 

 many of the logs were not merchantable quality, owing to their being crooked, 

 full of bad and rotten knots, &c. The case was originally tried in the Royal 

 Maritime and Mercantile Court of Justice at Stettin, upon which a commission 

 to take evidence before the town clerk of Hull was issued. The case was 

 decided in favour of the plaintiffs, who were awarded the sum of £551 6s. 

 damages, with interest and costs, upon which the defendants appealed. Upon 

 the appeal the decision of the inferior court was affirmed, and the appeal dis- 

 missed with costs against the defendants. 



Algerian Forests. — France has just sustained a rather serious pecuniary 

 loss by the burning of three-fourths of the immense forests which she held in 

 her Algerian colony. These forests occupied 200,000 acres in the province of 

 Constantine, and 150,000 acres have been destroyed. 



Labuenlm trees are in full blossom at Bath. 



Eeeata. — In Mr. Jandrell's interesting account of the coniferaa at Hawkstone 

 there were one or two printer's errors. No. 2 was stated to have been 

 planted fifteen years ; this should have been twenty-five j'ears. Also No. 2 

 Wellingtonia has been planted only twenty years instead of twenty-six. 



India. — Mr. J. M'Kee, assistant conservator of forests of the first grade in 

 the Central Provinces, has been appointed to officiate as assistant controller- 

 general of forests during Mr. Home's absence on leave. 



Obituary. — We regret to announce the death of Piiilippo Parlatore, the 

 Director of the Royal Museum of Natural History and Physics at Florence 

 and Professor of Botany. Professor Parlatore was born at Palermo in 1816, 

 and died on the 9st Inst., in his sixty-first year. He is best known in this 

 country for his " Monograph on Conifers," in " De Cardolle's Prodromus," 

 one of the best works on the subject extant. 



Purchase of a Ross-siiire Estate. — We understand that the lands of 

 Rosemarkie, estate of Hawkhill, situated near the ancient borough of Fort- 

 rose, and lately belonging to Major Nicholson, who has for the present 

 removed to Africa, have been privately disposed of to Mr. George Dunlop, 

 merchant, Greenock, who is the proprietor of the estates of Ballinoe, Well- 

 greens, and Maryfield, in the parish of Kincardine, county of Ross. 



Appointment. — Mr. Hugh Munro, late of the Caithness Saw-mills, Wick, 

 has recently been appointed forester to the Earl of Leicester on his estate at 

 Holkham, Norfolk. 



A Wonderful Tree. — Adjacent to the city of Myobamba, Peru, exists a tree 

 called sami-caspi, which possesses some remarkable features. It grows 

 about 50 ft. high, and 3 ft. in diameter at the base, and has the power of ab- 

 sorbing an immense quantity of humidity from the atmosphere, which it con- 

 centrates and ultimately throws off from its leaves in showers, sometimes in 

 such quantities as to convert the ground around it into a bog. Strange to say, 

 this property is strongest during summer, when rivers are at their lowest and 

 water most scarce. What a boon it would be at the present time for India , 

 where thousands are perishing for want of water ! Sami-caspi means rain- 

 tree. 



In the State of Illinois there are 334,067 acres occupied by orchards. In 

 Great Britain there are only 150,526 acres. 



