NEW PUBLICATIONS. 121 



ultimately be cultivated, the supply yielded spontaneously by nature 

 not being sufficient. A glance at the history of this article shows that 

 the demand for it advances at a ratio that makes it impossible to cal- 

 culate what quantity our manufacturers will require twenty, nay, even 

 ten years hence, to say nothing about the Chinese, who also begin to 

 use it to a lai'ge extent. Caoutchouc does not seem to have been 

 known to the ancients, though it abounds in the Eastern hemisphere ; 

 and it was reserved for Columbus to discover it in the possession of 

 the American Indians, who had made footballs of it, which arrested 

 his attention. Cortes found the clowns of Montezuma's court dancing 

 in shoes made of it before the emperor and Mexican nobles, and the 

 Spanish conquerors protected themselves against the rain by smearing 

 their cloaks over with it, and thus anticipated the invention of Macintosh. 

 But though many witnesses came forward to vouch for the extraordinary 

 qualities of Caoutchouc, it was only towards the end of the last century 

 that it was recommended for rubbing out pencil marks on paper — 

 hence one of its English names ; and it is only within the last thirty 

 years that, through the experiments of Hancock and others, the real 

 value of the substance became fully appreciated, and at the same time 

 its future supply began to be regarded with that anxiety and fear which 

 some think may be removed by calling in the help of the gardener. — 

 Gard. Chron. 1870, p. 275. 



UclM |lublicali0ns. 



Fragmenta Phylographm Aiistralice. Contulit F. de Mueller, Ph. 



ct M.D., etc. etc. Vol. VI. Melbourne: 1867-18G8. Pp. 270, 



cum Tab. XLV.-LX. 



The colony of Victoria may justly pride itself upon possessing in 

 Dr. Von Mueller an official who, by his industry and scientific accuracy, 

 has conferred ui)on the Melbourne Gardens a world-wide reputation, 

 and, by the publications emanating from it, a character equal to that 

 of the leading botanical establishments in Europe. We do not at all 

 undervalue the many practical eiforts which Dr. Von Mueller has 

 nuulc to bciiclit directly the land of his adoption, by distributing 



