534 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



might add a great many other vegetables, which, 

 thrive only in tliofe iilands, and which furnilh to 

 the commerce of Europe, gums, mannas, and dye- 

 ftuffs. The apple-tree, fo common in France, 

 produces no where fuch fine fruit, and of fpecies 

 fo varied, as on the fhores of Normandy, under 

 the breath of the fea- breeze from the Weft. I 

 have no doubt that the fruit which was propofed 

 as the prize of beauty had, like Venus herfelf, fome 

 favourite ifle. 



If we carry our remarks even into the Torrid 

 Zone, we mail find that it is neither from Afia, 

 «or from Africa, that we obtain the clove, the nut- 

 meg, the cinnamon, the pepper of the beft qua- 

 lity ; the benzoin, the fandal-wood, the fagoe, and 

 many others, but from the Molucca Iilands, or 

 from thofe which are in the fame feas. The co- 

 coa-tree attains it's perfect beauty only in the Mal- 

 divia Iflands. Nay, there are, in the archipelagos 

 of thûfe Seas, a great number of fruit-trees de- 

 fcribed by Dampier, which have not yet been 

 tranfplanted into the Old Continent ; fuch as the 

 grape-tree. The double cocoa is to be found only 

 in the Sechelles Iilands. The iilands recently dif- 

 covered in the South-Sea, fuch as that of Taïti, 

 have prefented us with trees hitherto unknown, as 

 the bread-fruit, and the mulberry- tree, the bark 



of 



