612 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



pearance under the microscope, that the cotton fiber grew in the 

 flattened form. 



Mr. Haskell stated that cotton is extensively cultivated in 

 Brazil, where there are about 4,000,000 blacks^ who can be 

 taught to cultivate it. 



Mr. Nash said that the difficulty in the East Indies is, that the 

 climate is divided by the monsoons. The plant is well started 

 by the rain of the first monsoon. Then comes the sirocco, when 

 it needs rain ; and in the fall, when it needs dry weather, the 

 monsoon comes, and the rain is so violent as to destroy every- 

 thing. The Allegany range of mountains stops the trade winds, 

 as the coast stops the tides ; and the currents of air are de- 

 flected northward like the Gulf Stream, producing a climate such 

 as is found nowhere else. In Eastern Africa and in Brazil there 

 is an approach to it, and cotton can be cultivated there ; but it 

 will be an inferior article. The electrical influences of the earth 

 which aifect this question are very unevenly distributed. Gold 

 brought from Australia or Africa has no crystals ; while Ameri- 

 can gold is full of them. He did not believe that any white 

 man could grow as much cotton as a black man with a white 

 man over him. 



Mr. Seel/ remarked that the specimen of Peruvian cotton was 

 probably from milkweed, and came from Peru, 111. 



Mr. Bartlett said that he should wish, when the question 

 should come up again, to make some statements and to correct 

 some erroneous statements which had been made to-night. 



ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. 



Mr. Dibben said that he had not yet reached any satisfactory 

 solution of the question of the origin of the additional power in 

 Mr. Holcomb's combination of the permanent and electro-mag- 

 nets. With a battery force of two, and a positive force of four 

 from the permanent magnet, upon combinii^g the two the sum is 

 not six, but about twelve, as shown by his latest experiments. 

 So with other proportions. If the sum of the two forces, taken 

 ■ separately, is ten, taken together it will be about doubled, or 

 twenty. He could only account for it upon the supposition — 

 which, however, he was not prepared to accept— that the pre- 

 sence of the permanent magnet permits a quicker passage of a 

 given battery force through the coil, and thus a greater force is 

 generated in the battery by the consumption of a greater quan- 

 tity of zinc. 



