204 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



Nature has been pleafed, elfewhere, to produce 

 the fruit of this tree with a degree of bkternefs, 

 for the ufe of fome animal no doubt, on the brink 

 of the falt-water creeks, and arms of the Sea, in 

 Virginia. She has beftowed on the tree which 

 bears it, leaves difpofed in form of a tile, a icaly 

 bark, flowers different from thofe of the European 

 cheftnut-tree, but adapted, unqueftionably, to the 

 humid exhalations, and to the afpe*5ls of the Sun 

 to which it is expofed. In a word, (he has trans- 

 formed it into the great India cheftnut. It arrives 

 at much greater beauty in it's native country, than 

 in Europe. That of America is the maritime 

 cheftnut-tree ; and that of Europe is the cheftnut- 

 tree of the mountains. She has placed, perhaps 

 by a different kind of combination, this fruir, on 

 the beech-tree of our hills, the mail: of which is 

 evidently a fpecies of cheftnut. 



Finally, by means of one of thofe maternal at- 

 tentions which have induced her to fufpend, even 

 on herbs, the productions of trees, and to (erve up 

 the fame dimes on the fmalleft tables, fhe has 

 placed before us the fame fruit in the grain of the 

 black corn, which, in it's colour, and it's triangu- 

 lar form, refembles the feed of the beech, called 

 in Latin fagus, whence this fpecies of corn has 

 obtained the name of fagopymm. One thing, at 



any 



