2412 The Zoologist — December, 1870. 



concerning ihe degree of mastery on the plant are perbaps reserved for coming 

 centuries to interpret, when we shall possess a more intimate acquaintance with the 

 nature of the vegetable organism and of the forces influencing it." I have but little 

 to add to these significant words; the practical importance of this observation for the 

 gardener is evident. The pricking of figs and other fruits is not only done by natural 

 caprification, but also by impatient man; his hand supersedes the insect in feriiliza- 

 tion ; his knife grafts the choice variety on ihe wild stock ; his influence on shape, 

 colour, habit and quality of vegetable growths is yearly becoming more extensive; 

 and who will deny that a class of pathological forms, which has given us writing and 

 dj'cing fluids, various oils, the elm-balm aud elm-water, and even eatable galls of 

 different kinds, will not some day reveal yet greater benefits? It is much easier to 

 disregard ancient medical lore, as for instance that of the Bedeguar, than to disprove 

 it altogether; and worthless as they may be now, it is nevertheless true that the 

 qualifications attributed to sundry galls by the older pharmaceutic chemists first 

 directed attention to a field of inquiry, in which our present observers gather a 

 gradually increasing and daily more valuable crop of practical results. — Albert Muilcr, 

 in ' Gardeners' Chronicle.' 



The Upas Tree absolved. — In Java a crater called the " Gueva Upas," or the 

 Valley of Poison, 650 yards in circumference, also possesses a celebrity founded on 

 the reports which attributed to the innocent emanations of the upas tree, the juice of 

 which is used to poison arrows, the effects produced by carbonic acid. The following 

 description explains the dull aspect of this strange place : — " The use of the upas was 

 formerly general in all the islands, but the introduction of fire-arms has now banished 

 it to a few saTage tribes, who take refuge in the volcanic mountains with which the 

 island is filled. These volcanoes are igneous or muddy; their unforeseen eruptions 

 often cover large spaces with larva and mud. Sulphureous acid, and silicious springs, 

 petrifying all the objects near, spout up from the ground. Sometimes from the top of 

 a hill the astonished traveller all at once discovers a valley without vctretation, calcined 

 by the sun. Skeletons of animals of all kinds lie on the ground ; their posture proves 

 that they have been seized suddenly when full of life; the tiger the moment when it 

 had seized its prey; the vulture when he alighted on these carcases to devour them. 

 Thousands of insects, ants, coleoptera, cover the soil : it is a valley of death. Carbonic 

 acid escapes by the fissures in the ground, and in virtue of its specific weight it 

 remains invisible at the bottom of the valley; an analogous phenomenon to that of 

 the Grotto del Cane aud of Dunsthochle, near Pyrmont. Man alone may cross these 

 valleys of death on account of his head rising above the bed of gas." (From ' La Plante 

 et sa Vie,' by Schleiden). — Edwin Birchall. 



[It has long been known that the Upas may be cultivated in botanic gardens 

 without the slightest injury to plants growing around or even beneath it; but 

 Schleiden's transference of its lethal powers to the crater of a volcano bearing the 

 same name will be new to many. — E. Newman.'] 



LONDON: E. NEWMAN, PBINTEB, 9, DEVONSHIRE STREET, BISHOPSGATE. 



