WOODS OF GREAT UTILITY. 445 



or .Mahogany trees ; the Ferolia Guyanensis, which supplies the 

 wfell-known rose or satin wood ; the Jacaranda Brasiliensis, and 

 the Dalbergia, which yield the violet ebony ; the Stereidia, acumi- 

 nata, whose flowers exhale a foetid odour, and whose timber, called 

 " stinkwood," is nevertheless held in high esteem on account of its 

 durability, the fineness of its texture, and the excellent polish of 

 which it is susceptible. Nor must we forget the Ccesalpinece, whose 

 woods are impregnated with a red colouring matter which varies in 

 tint according to the species, and which are largely employed by the 

 dyer under the names of " Brazil wood " and " Pernambuco wood." 

 A great number of other woods which we procure from these countries, 

 and which are in daily use in cabinet work, toys, marquetry, and 

 dyeing, belong to vegetable species as yet undetermined. We might, 

 however, almost venture to assert that whatever tree you accidentally 

 and at haphazard struck down in these forests, either its timber, bark, 

 or roots would be found capable of being utilized. 



I have not mentioned, among the species proper to the Forests of 

 the New World, those which are common with our own, and which 

 abound upon elevated lands. The extraordinary height to which not 

 only isolated mountains, but whole districts rise, in the vicinity of 

 the Equator, and the low temperature which is the consequence of 

 this elevation, provide the inhabitant of the Torrid Zone with a 

 remarkable spectacle. For while, as Humboldt remarks, he may look 

 around him upon groves of palms and bananas, he also sees those 

 vegetable forms which are regarded as more particularly belonging to 

 the countries of the North. Cypresses, firs, and oaks, barberries and 

 alders, closely resembling our own, cover the table-lands of Southern 

 Mexico and that part of the Andes which the Equator traverses. Thus 

 Nature allows the denizen of the Torrid Zone to see, without quitting 

 his native land, all the vegetable forms of the earth, at the same time 

 that from one pole to the other the entire vault of heaven reveals to 

 his gaze its luminous worlds. 



I conclude my account of the South American Forests with a 



