DUTCH 



DWARFING TREES. 



Vista [the upper obarrving station], and Ouajara produced a* great an 

 incrcujc in the radiation a* did the great difference, nearly four time* as 

 groat, between Guajara " itself, and the town of OraUva at the bate of 

 the mountain. 



"To eliminate this dusty medium'' Profeaw Smyth concludes, 

 " would be of UM utmost consequence to the further improvement of 

 astronomic*! observation, and may be considered the greatest and most 

 subtile difficulty which UM observer has to deal with ; and it is pro- 

 Ubly general over the world, a* on the South African mountain*, at 

 height* of 5000 feet, the phenomenon wa* almost at notable as on 

 Guaiara. From Dr. Mann's observations of solar radiation in Madeira, 

 and from the relation* given to me by inhabitants of Teneriffe, as to 

 the period* of the year when the Teak is seen most clearly, I am dis- 

 posed to think that there is least of this dust in the atmosphere in the 

 latter end of the winter and the earlier part of the spring." (Report, 

 or ' PhiL Tran..; 1858, pp. 481, 482, 488-488, 499.) 



1'rvfi-iwir Smyth f..und it almost impossible to collect particles of 

 the dust-haze for examination. Some of it, however, deposited at 

 Guajara, he found to be scale* from butterflies' wings. He also 

 obtained a specimen of atmospheric dust which had fallen all over 

 the Canarian islands, and another which had fallen at sea. By the 

 microscopical examination of these, with a power of 400 linear, hardly 

 anything could be made out but particles of sand. " The colour of 

 was mostly an ochry yellow with an occasional bright' red, 

 m. .re rarely a green fragment ; but nothing organic could bo clearly 

 distinguished of a diatomaceoua character ; the forms of almost all 

 the particles being like quartz rocks in miniature." (' Report,' pp. 

 670,671.) 



From its characters and the concomitant phenomena, it may be 

 inferred that the haze described in the following extract from Dr. 

 Joseph D. Hooker's ' Himalayan Journals ' (vol. ii. p. 409), is the dust- 

 haze, occurring at altitudes in the Himalaya, nearly corresponding to 

 those at which it exists, as we have seen, over the island of Teneriffe, and 

 on the mountains of South Africa. " Two phenomena particularly 

 obstruct radiation in Sikkim the clouds and fog from the end of 

 May till October, and the haze from February till May. Two months 

 alone are usually clear ; one before and one after the rains, when the 

 air, though still humid, is transparent. The haze has never been fully 

 explained, though a well-known phenomenon. On the plains of India, 

 at the foot of the hills, it begins generally in the forenoon of the 

 cold season, with the rise of the west wind ; and, in February espe- 

 cially, obscures the sun's disc by noon ; frequently it huts throughout 

 the twenty-four hours, ami is usually accompanied by great dryness of 

 the atmosphere. It gradually diminishes in ascending, and I have 

 xperienced it at 10,000 feet ; at 7000, however, it very often, 

 in April, obscures the snowy ranges thirty miles off, which are bright 

 anil defined at sunrise, and either pale away, or become of a lurid 

 yrll.'w-red, according to the density of this haze, till they disappear at 

 10 a.m. I believe it always accompanies a south-west wind (which 

 is a 'deflected current of the north-west) and dry atmosphere in 

 Sikkim." 



Hermann Schlagintweit has noticed the diminution of the solar 

 radiation by the dust-storms of India, and observed a peculiar color- 

 ation of the sun, which he thinks is their regular concomitant when 

 the air has lost a certain amount of transparency. " In dust- 

 storms," he remarks, " the sky has," as in fogs, " a decidedly reddish 

 colour, which in this case is that of the dust itself, but the sun's disc 

 is blue, a phenomenon evidently connected with the suspension of 

 solid particles in the air. I observed this colour best on the 6th of 

 April 1856, at Futtehpore. The hot wind lasted from 12h. 45m. to 6h. 

 10m. p.m., and stopped very suddenly after sunset. The sun was very 

 much obscured as early as 1 p.m., and had then assumed this blue 

 appearance so decidedly, that it looked like the sun's disc seen 

 through a dark-blue glass ; the shadow of a thin cylinder falling on 

 white paper wa* nevertheless well defined and reddish, showing that 

 the illuminated paper had received rays of the (complementary) bluish 

 i..l.iur. The blue colour of the sun, though the light was gradually 

 diminished, lasted until 5h. 19m. p.m., when the sun had a height only .!' 

 about 15 degrees; then the disc soon disappeared entirely behind the 



clouds of dust. The temperature of the air diminished with 



the increase of the wind and discoloration of the air." (' Journ. of the 

 Asiat. Soc. of Bengal,' vol. xiv., 1856, pp. 564, 665.) Whatever 

 dcnce, however, the blue colour of the sun may have upon the 

 presence of solid particles in such caws, its cause, in other instances, 

 is certainly a particular condition of the aqueous vapour in the air. 

 IBS; METKOROLOOT ; VOLCASOES; WWDB.] 



lil'TCH l.K.U'II). [KT11YLIXK.] 



HI TV. [Rli,HT.] 



i . I ' I ' M V 1 1 { I . the name given to various magistrates in the republic 

 of Home, a* well as in the colonia and inunicipia, who were elected in 

 pain for the discharge of any class of duties. We find the name 

 applied to nix different set* of functionaries at different periods. The 

 first duumvirate on record was composed of the two judges of blood 

 <>/nmriri /tnliirllioHu), appointed by Tullns Hoctilius for the trial of 

 1'. I b r.itm", indicted for the murder of his sister, a crime of so great 

 a nature u to be deserving of capital punishment (parducttw). Tho 

 d condemned to death, a* the lictor appeared with the fatal 

 cord, claimed hi* right of appeal to the people, which being allowed 



him, he wu acquitted, as Livy says, by them, " admiratione magi* vir- 

 tuti* ouaui jura cau*B." (Liv. i. 24.) This office was escrowed by 

 Tarquinius Superbu* alone, for tyrannical purposus (Lav. i. 49), and 

 afterward* by the consuU (Liv. ii. 5), who were indeed a duumvirate. 

 Whether then duumviri wore the same a* the i^ttttwt* parricidii, as 

 Nil l.uhr suppose*, or whether they were distinct official personage* 

 during the kingly dynasty, is a question involved in the same obscurity 

 as most other point* relating to this period of Roman history. It cer- 

 tainly would appear that the two terms are confounded by ancient 

 writers, some calling the judges appointed to preside at the trial of 

 rajiit.d offences quavt. panic, others calling them duum. perduel. (<-f. 

 Li v. i. _'(], d. 1 , 2, 2. 23, and Fectus J4 roc. fian'ci ct toraritim). But there 

 is no doubt that they were distinct officials after the fall of the kingly 

 power, and in the republican time*, for while the ne nut, the qunwtores, 

 were regularly appointed by the year, the others were rarely aixl -nl y 

 on great occasions summoned to work. (cf. l.iv. ii. 41, \ i. ." : I >\. -.-. 

 Casa. xxxvii. 27; Aul. Get xvii. 21, and Uic. Pro Rabicio, c. iv. -J.) 

 The duumriri tafromm, who took care of and interpreted the Sibylline 

 Books, were also a very ancient magistracy, ascribed by the old 

 legends to the last Tarquin, and summoned into being on such 

 dreadful emergencies as Livy record*. (Liv. iv. 21.) Nii-l.uhr think* 

 (' Hist of Rome,' i. p. 504, EngL tr.) that the number was dictated l>y 

 a wish to deal evenly with tho first two tribes, the Ramnes and the 

 Titles. Besides these there were the duumriri jure dicuttdo, who were 

 the highest magistrates in the municipal towns and colonies (. 

 Agr. teg. ii. 84, D. 2, 8, D. 15, 1. 8, g ult..D. 47, 10, 13, 6), some- 

 times called consuls (Oic. in 1'ison. cxi.), and sometimes even dic- 

 tator and qmcstor. Their jurisdiction, according to Savigny, was, 

 under the republic, unlimited in civil matters, but was restricted 

 within the limits mentioned in the digest and code in Imperial times. 

 The duumriri quinyuennaits, or the censors in the municipal towns ; 

 distinct personages from the above magistrates ; the itutanviri 

 specially appointed for the purpose of building or dedicating temples 

 (Liv. i. 28, xxii. 33) ; and the duumriri naralet, who were two officers, 

 first elected in the year 43d A.U.C. (Liv. ' Kpit.' lib. xii. ; Nielmhr's 

 ' Homische Qeschichte,' translated by W. Smith and L. Schmitz, 

 edit. 1851, vol. iii. p. 241.) Their duty was to collect, equip, man, 

 and command the fleets of the republic. (Liv. ix. 30 ; xl. 18 and 26.) 

 At the time of the first Runic war the office no longer existed. 



DWARF is a technical term employed by gardeners to distinguish 

 fruit-trees whose branches proceed from close to the ground from 

 ridrrt or standards whose original stocks are several feet in height. 



nWAKI'INi; TRKES. Nature, in many respects, can be made to 

 deviate from her ordinary course of procedure, in order to be subser- 

 vient to tho purposes of men. In nothing is this fact more apparent 

 than in the various modes of dwarfing tree*. 



The trees of our orchards and forests, for example, which grow 

 naturally to a considerable size, can be made to assume all the appear- 

 ances of maturity and age while only a few feet high ; a forest in 

 miniature can thus be created, which has a very grotesque and curious 

 appearance. There are various methods of producing this effect ; such 

 as selecting peculiar kinds of stocks and grafting upon them 

 example, if the pear-tree be grafted upon the quince stock, or the peach 

 upon the plum, their growth ia very much retarded, and their ultimate 

 size ia comparatively small ; the same effect is produced upon all 

 trees where there is a difference between the tissue of the stock and that 

 of the scion which has been grafted upon it ; or if dwarf varieties be 

 grafted upon stocks of a similar constitution , though taller in growth, 

 the former will still retain their original character. Again, if the 

 branches be bent, and the flow of the sap in any way inign^led, or if a 

 quantity of the fibrous roots be cut away, and nourishment more 

 sparingly supplied to the branches, we arrive at the same results. 



Sometimes trees are dwarfed by very severe pruning, particularly if 

 this operation be performed in summer; and, although they evid>-ntly 

 try for a length of time to overcome this obstruction to their natural 

 ; tiny i \.ntually assume a dwarfed and stunted hal 'it. whirl), 

 with a little care, may be retained for many years. The Chinese in 

 particular have carried this practice to a great extent, and they orna- 

 ment their fanciful gardens with miniature forests of elms, junipers, 

 and other timber trees. 



The methods of dwarfing employed by the Chinese are the following : 

 young trees of various sorts are planted in flat porcelain vessels, and 

 receive only so much water as is sufficient to keep them nlu 

 very short time tho pots are completely filled with roots, which, being 

 hemmed in on all sides, cannot obtain a sufficient quantity of nutri- 

 ment, and, as a matter of course, the growth of the stem an.) branches 

 is thus impeded. The Chinese also pinch oil' the en.ls from the young 

 shoots, mutilate the roots, lacerate the bark, tie down the branches, 

 and break many of them half through; in short, by every mcanx in tlu-ir 

 power they contrive to check growth, so that, stunted and deformed 

 by these means, the trees soon assume all the marks of ago when only 

 two or three feet high. 



There is another method of producing dwarf trees, which may be 

 termed accidental : namely, selecting dwarf individuals and obtaining 

 seed from them. It is well known that when tho young seed is fer- 

 tilised by the influence of the pollen belonging to its own flown 

 the same plant upon which it grows, the future progeny so produced 

 partake* generally in a large degree of the nature of the parent from 



