Foreign Notices : — Germany. 523 



Miller's blue, gently varying to a pearl colour, with flat and concave petals : 

 reds, from the deepest tint to a pale pink ; and lilac and violet colours in end- 

 less varieties. Some quite white and double ; others single, and only varied 

 by a different-coloured flower-stalk and leaves, and by having the anthers 

 more or less coloured. 



He makes the following observations on their cultivation: — The Hepatica 

 thrives best on a soil that is rather sandy; requires no dung, and but very little 

 sun ; and it should be kept rather moist than dr}'. It becomes a large bushy 

 plant in the course of a few years, and is propagated by dividing the root. As 

 M. Lucanus found the Hepatica 'covered with fallen leaves in a wild state in 

 winter, he adopted the same in his garden, and removed them again in spring, 

 without using the rake, which would have torn up the plants. Afterwards a 

 layer of loose earth, half an inch thick, was laid on. (^Verhandlungen, ^-c., 

 Berlin, vol. iv. p. 229.) 



Extracts from the JEpistolari/ Correspondence of Edivard Otto, during his 

 Voyage to Cuba, and his Abode there. — On the 28th of August, 1838, at eight 

 o'clock in the morning, our ship, Julius and Augustus, Capt. Wallis, after beino- 

 till then detained on account of the very unfavourable state of the weather, at 

 last set sail with a south-west wind, in company with several other vessels, 

 from the port of Hamburg. The wind soon shifted to the west, and increased 

 to such a degree, that at Grauerort, only seven miles from Hamburg, we were 

 obliged to go to anchor. Another attempt only brought us as far as Gliick- 

 stadt, where we again raised the anchor on the 3d of November, at five o'clock 

 in the morning, and sailed by Cuxhaven at eleven o'clock a. m. A dreadful 

 storm arose in the following night, which lasted till eight in the morning, and 

 which brought us as far as the Channel, but which we did not enter, so as to 

 endanger the ship as little as possible. An account of some terrible disaster 

 having befallen us might certainly have been reported, as the violence of the 

 storm had torn away the board on which was the name of the vessel, and 

 which, very probably, had been washed ashore. But, however, in spite of the 

 weather, neither we nor the ship sustained any material injury; and our 

 patience only was put to the test when we saw vessels coming from the 

 Channel, and advancing rapidly with a favourable wind. On the llth of 

 November we at last found ourselves in the Channel, about four miles from 

 the English coast, and were, therefore, just upon the point of leaving Europe. 

 By the unanimous desire of the passengers to bid the last farewell to their 

 friends in this part of the world, an English pilot was allowed to come on 

 board, to whose care a number of letters were committed. This man seemed 

 to have the expectation of being treated with British generosity, as he only 

 asked, as a small indemnification for his services, the sum of five pounds ster- 

 ling, or thirty-five Prussian dollars ! 



As soon as we had passed the Channel, the wind began again to be unfa- 

 vourable, and during the last week in November it raged tremendously, ac- 

 companied by so many threatening clouds, that we were obliged to take down 

 all the sails but one ; and as we directed our course to the region of the trade 

 winds, and consequently were obliged to steer to the west coast of Africa, we 

 could only reach about as far as 37° n,l., on the coast of Spain. We were 

 more fortunate in the beginning of December, and on the 2d we found we 

 were in 36° 4' n. l. and 19° 29' w. l., in the sea called the Sargasso Sea. 

 Here we first met with i^ucus natans, which is said to cover a space re- 

 sembling a meadow, a few degrees further southward. Hooks, nets, and other 

 implements, were immediately in requisition, to catch all that we could for our 

 further information.* The first attempt brought us a small species of crab 



* The best writer on the i^ucus, after Humboldt, is J. Purdy, in his Me- 

 moir, descriptive and explanatory, to accompany the new chart of the Atlantic 

 Ocean. 



