156 



branches, and both the surfaces of the leaf being 

 thus equally presented to the light, there is 

 scarcely any difference between the front and the 

 back. 



New South Wales, he says, is a perpetual 

 flower-garden ; and in point of size, the trees are 

 not surpassed by those of any quarter of the 

 globe. Amongst others, he mentioned the cab- 

 bage palm, which rises sometimes one hundred 

 feet above the rest of the forest; and another 

 palm called the seaforthia elegans, equal in 

 size to the cabbage tree, but with pinnate leaves 

 like those of the cocoa nut. From the broad 

 membranous spatha of the flowers, the natives 

 make water-buckets, by tying up each end, just 

 as they make their bark canoes. The farmers 

 use them for milk-pails ; and of the leaves, both 

 hats and thatch are made ; so that, altogether, 

 this seaforthia seems as useful as it is elegant. 



The Miss Maudes having alluded to the de- 

 scription I had given them yesterday of the dif- 

 ference between the woods in England and 

 Brazil, my uncle said, that young people did 

 well to make such observations, and to acquire a 

 general idea of the productions that characterize 

 the great divisions of the globe. He added, that 

 on all subjects of natural history it is not enough 

 to amuse ourselves with details, or to accumulate 

 mere facts, however valuable, they should be 

 classed in our minds ; we then perceive the 



