SECRETARY'S REPORT. 59 



one or two varieties, if they were of this species at all, were 

 ever known to grow before the discovery of America by the 

 Europeans ? We may remark, also, that if we suppose that a 

 species of maize was actually known in Central Asia, or to the 

 Chinese, it may have been the case that the Indians of the 

 extreme north-west of America had communication with the 

 extreme north-east of Asia, and that some one or two species, by 

 this means, found their way into Asia. If such communication 

 existed, which we do not believe, the fact that it was found in 

 China and about the Himalaya, which is by no means established, 

 would not prove it to be indigenous to Asia. Or, if one or two 

 species were actually found, the fact that there were no more 

 in Asia, and so many in America, would be a strong evidence 

 of its being exotic in Asia. It might have drifted, as many 

 things are known to have done, by sea, from America to Asia.. 

 This accumulative evidence seems to us to be satisfactory 

 and conclusive. It was the custom among some of the earlier 

 writers, to speak of America as being sterile and wanting in the 

 most important vegetable productions. They little suspected 

 the surpassing richness of the country which had been made 

 known to astonished Europe. The infinite variety of plants 

 indigenous to Mexico, to Central and to South America, where 

 we suppose maize to have originated, is beyond description. 

 No country on the globe can excel them in the boundless 

 luxuriance of native, indigenous plants. Here even the giant 

 trees of the forest are loaded with flowers of every hue and 

 variety. The purple and the blue and the scarlet, the brilliant 

 yellow and white, twine and mingle with every variety of green. 

 Here are the fig, the sugar-cane, the indigo, the aloe and the 

 pepper plants, the passifloras, the pine apple and the endless 

 varieties of the cactus with its splendid and variegated blos- 

 soms. Here is the night-flowering cereus, the alspice myrtle, 

 the clove, the nutmeg, mango, guava, and an infinite variety of 

 palms, rising often to the height of two hundred feet. Here, 

 too, are forests of logwood and mahogany, of colossal grandeur, 

 often surrounded with shrubbery and parasitic plants, with a 

 foliage so dense that the rays of the sun can never penetrate. 

 Here is the mimosa, majestic in its size, the beautiful acacia, 

 and grasses that rise to the height of forty and fifty feet, with 

 tree ferns and reeds without number, often seen a hundred feet 



