1862.] AZOREAN FLORA. 261 



tops are generally liidden by misty clouds. Smoking craters and 

 hot springs abound ; and sometimes so close to a cold one, that 

 you may put your thumb into a spring Tvliich will boil an egg in 

 three minutes and your little finger in another which is chilling 

 cold. 



The usual arboreous plant is Erica mediterranea, which grows 

 everywhere from chinks in the rocks. The country is all rock, and 

 all the rocks are honeycombed, as lava usually is. 



The orange groves are fine when well sheltered by high stone 

 walls, and where the soil is good. St. Michael oranges have a 

 high reputation in Europe. 



Pittosporum undulatum, a New Holland plant, is quite na- 

 turalized in our groves and gardens, many of which, ours 

 among the rest, are like an Indian jungle, the plants are so 

 crowded and drawn up. I am well pleased with the productions 

 of these islands, but the places themselves are like penal settle- 

 ments, and the natives are poor and also excessively conceited : 

 though few of them have so nmch as a shoe to their foot, they 

 despise people of other nations, and especially look upon En- 

 glishmen as a very inferior race, much lower in the scale of 

 humanity than they themselves. Their ignorance is not over- 

 matched by their conceit and their poverty, prominent though 

 these qualities be. 



Our friend's correspondent, Mr. Rieth, concludes with the ex- 

 pression of his longings for English newspapers and for letters 

 from his friends. No marvel that he is heartily sick of a place 

 like a convict establishment, and feels the want of something to 

 relieve him from the tedium of so wretched an abode. 



The Azores, like other volcanic islands, are probably still on 

 the increase; for as late as since 1811 new islands have been 

 emerging from the deep, and it is possible that some of those 

 formed at an earlier period may have increased in their di- 

 mensions. 



It would be worth the labour to write a brief history of 

 the vegetation of some of the recently formed islands, said to 

 be already 30G0 feet high. As the plants of the entire group 

 are probably not much above 400, those of a small, newly-born 

 island would not probably be more than thirty or forty. But 

 this would be a very interesting bit of the history of botany. 

 Would it throw any light on the origin of species ? 



