THE MUSEUM. 



IS 



land in another, occasionally breaking 

 ing its way across a narrow neck which 

 lies between the two extremities, and 

 filling up the old channel. 



Ch.\s. S. Whiting, 

 Montreal, Canada. 



The Palm-houses at Washington. 



The low roofs of the Palm-houses in 

 the Botanic Gardens and Agricultural 

 Department at Washington have made 

 it necessary to sacrifice many rare and 

 beautiful specimens for lack of space. 

 In nearly every case the plants were in 

 the best of health and could only be 

 duplicated by long patient years of 

 cultivation. A few years ago a speci- 

 men of Livistonia Chinensis, at that 

 time the largest in this country, had to 

 be thrown out for lack of head-room. 

 A fine specimen of Cocos butyracea 

 was thrown out of the Palm-house of 

 the Department of Agriculture for a 

 similar reason. In the Botanic Gar- 

 dens there are now three monarchs of 

 the jungle awaiting their sentence. 

 The first of these is a Phoenix sylves- 

 tris, a perfectly developed specimen 

 fifty feet high, with a trunk six feet in 

 circumference. It was sunk in the 

 ground a few years ago, but has grown 

 since until its leaves are now pressing 

 against the roof of the house. It is 

 considered the handsomest specimen of 

 the species in cultivation. A noble 

 specimen of the rare Sugar Palm, Ar- 

 cnga saccliarifcra, is the second plant 

 which has outgrown the largest house, 

 and has been kept within bounds by 

 cutting off the ends of the leaves, in 

 'the hope that it would flower and ripen 

 seed; but the plant is in too robust a 

 condition, for this species begins to 

 flower only when enfeebled by age or 



other trying conditions. It then be- 

 gins to flower at the top and keeps on 

 producing a bunch in the axil of each 

 leaf one after another downward; until 

 the plant is exhausted. This season 

 one of the immense leaves has broken 

 through the glass and ;]now towers 

 twenty feet above the roof outside. 

 The third tree, which will soon have 

 to be removed, is Acrocoinia sclcro- 

 carpa. It is impossible to do any- 

 thing more with this one, as several 

 years ago it was sunk about six feet in 

 the ground to give it increased head- 

 room, and it has now filled all the 

 space above. — G. \V. O., in Garden 

 and Forest. 



November Literary Note. 



A complete and immediate revolu- 

 tion of transportation methods, involv- 

 ing a reduction of freight charges on 

 grain from the West to New York of 

 from 50 to 60 per cent, is what is pre- 

 dicted in the November Cosmopolitan. 

 The plan proposes using light and in- 

 expensive corrugated iron cylinders, 

 hung on a slight rail supported on 

 poles from a cross-arm — the whole 

 system involving an expense of not 

 more than fifteen hundred dollars a 

 rKiile for construction. The rolling 

 stock is equally simple and compara- 

 tively inexpensive. Continuous lines 

 of cylinders, moving with no interval 

 to speak of, would carry more grain in 

 a day than a quadruple track railway. 

 This would constitute a sort of grain- 

 pipe line. The Cosmopolitan also 

 points out the probable abolition of 

 street-cars, before the coming horse- 

 less carriage, which can be operated 

 by a boy on asphalt pavements at a 

 total expense for labor, oil, and inter- 

 est, of not more than one dollar a day. 



