932 



plant, which he had gathered in the mountains near the Bay of Val- 

 divia. Being an apparently undescribed species, the author has nam- 

 ed it Thuja tetragona, and has given the character and description in 

 the paper under notice. Captain King has given a full and interest- 

 ing account of the Alerse, and its valuable properties as a timber, in 

 his ' Voyage of the Adventure and Beagle,' (i. 282) ; which, together 

 with the notices added by Captain Fitzroy, are quoted at length in 

 the article. The tree appears to be one of great height and diameter, 

 for Captain King states that " spars eighty or ninety feet long may 

 be procured, and from eight hundred to one thousand boards are fre- 

 quently obtained from a single tree ; I was told even so many as one 

 thousand five hundred out of one trunk." The planks are " seven or 

 eight feet long, two inches thick, and nine or ten inches wide." The 

 straightness of grain enables the natives to split the tree so as to make 

 it appear as if " dressed with an adze, or even with a plane," but the 

 axe is the only instrument used. The wood is used chiefly for " the 

 floors, partitions and weather-boards of houses, and also for shingling 

 the roof," and for the latter purpose it is said to be very durable : it 

 neither shrinks nor warps, is close-grained and well adapted for fur- 

 niture : staves for casks are also made from it by the country people. 

 The bark serves to caulk the seams of vessels, and the spars have 

 been found peculiarly strong and valuable for the masts. 



Captain Fitzroy's account of the mode of obtaining the Merse is 

 very interesting. The natives work in family parties, at what are 

 termed Astilleros, where the trees are felled. Here they work for 

 four or five weeks, and then return home to attend to their potato- 

 grounds and other domestic affairs, " till their feet heal, and a para- 

 lytic motion of the legs, acquired in the Astillero, has ceased," when 

 " they return for another cargo, and work till their feet and limbs can 

 stand it no longer." To this laborious life children are inured from a 

 very early age. 



" Enumeration of the Mosses and Hepaticce, collected in Brazil 

 hy George Gardner, Esq., drawn up hy Sir W. J. Hooker, and W. 

 Wilson, Esq." This list contains one hundred and twenty-six moss- 

 es (fourteen of which are described as new species), fourteen Hepaticae 

 and nine lichens. 



Art. CCX. — Notice of ' The London Catalogue of British Plants. 

 Published under the direction of the Botanical Society of Lon- 

 don. Adapted for an Index Catalogue to British Herbaria ; 



