328 MONTHLY SUMMAEY. 



fountains, A catalogue of the works so exhibited may he had at the 

 Garden, with a note of the prices asked for the various articles. 



The Talipot palm announced in last month's proceedings has 

 now arrived, and will be put together in the Conservatory without 

 loss of time. A tent entirely composed of its leaves will also he 

 put up in the Garden. 



It seems that the enormous length of the Great Flag Staff 

 of Douglas fir from Vancouver's Island, also noticed in last 

 month's proceedings, is likely to prove an insurmountable obstacle 

 to its ever reaching these shores. The last advices are to the 

 effect that no vessel at Vancouver's Island was large enough to 

 take it. An equally great curiosity as to length is, how- 

 ever, to be seen in the Western Middle Arcade, in a spar of a 

 gum-tree, from Tasmania, S30 feet long, although it is infinitely 

 inferior in value, and wants a great part of its interest from 

 not being in one piece. It is only about half a foot square 

 at its base, and extends the whole length of one of the lofty 

 New Holland Gum-trees, or Eucalypti, the top portion still 

 retaining its bark ; and although its small diameter gives 

 a most inadequate idea of the tree itself, still it serves to 

 impress forcibly enough upon the mind what a tree of 230 feet 

 in length really is. The species which has produced it is 

 Eucalyptus viminalis^ or the white swamp Gum. There are two 

 other most amazing logs placed in the ante-garden as seats, also 

 from Tasmania, the one 90 feet in length, 18 inches in breadth, 

 and 6 inches deep, cut from the Eucalyptus globulus, or Blue 

 Gum of Tasmania, the other from the Eucalyptus giganteus, the 

 Stringy Bark of that dependency, 80 feet in length, 18 inches 

 broad, and 7 inches deep. 



There are three other immense planks from Western Australia 

 not yet placed, also of the Eucalyptus, or Gum-tree tribe, which, 

 although not so long are scarcely less startling from their breadth, 

 one being 24 feet long, 8 feet broad, by 7 inches deep ; another, 

 28 feet long, 4| feet broad, 6^ deep; and the third, 28 feet 

 long, 3 feet 9 inches broad, by 5 inches deep. 



These specimens all exhibit more or less the peculiar 

 characteristics of the Gum-trees, which will be found well 

 described in the catalogue of Southern Woods collected for the 

 Great Exhibition at Paris, and quoted in the Catalogue of the 

 National and Industrial products of New South Wales for the 

 present International Exhibition. 



Forty-four large Carp, some wegihing 8 or ] lbs. have been re- 

 ceived from Her Majesty the Queen,, and placed in the large basin. 



