1900 | OPEN LETTERS 203 
and contains a very good collection of local products. The library contains 
about two thousand books and papers, and is rapidly growing. About 
are included most of the important scientific botanical journals. The 
herbarium contains a Ceylon collection, a general tropical collection, and a 
collection of the plants growing in the gardens. The new laboratory for 
research lies to the north of the herbarium, and is a single-storied building 
75 X 40 feet, including veranda on the west end. The length of the building 
runs east and west. On the north side are two rooms, one for general micro- 
scopic and morphological work, 36 X 18 feet, with four good working 
places, and one for physiological work, 18 x 18 feet, with two places. On the 
south side is a room for chemical work, 18 X 18 feet; a room for work in 
economic and pharmaceutical botany, 26 X 18 feet; and a small private 
laboratory, 18 X 10 feet. On the east end is a veranda, 8 feet wide, of which 
the two ends are built up so as to form a dark room and a lavatory, while the 
intermediate part forms a space 18 X 8 feet in which experimental work 
causing unpleasant smells or requiring open air can be carried on. The west 
veranda is partially closed in with a low trellis and wire netting to form a 
room for the breeding of insects, etc. The laboratory is fitted with the usual 
apparatus for work in botany, chemistry, and entomology. It contains alto- ° 
gether eleven good working places, of which five or six are usually occupied 
by the resident staff, leaving five or six available to workers from abroad, 
who will be heartily welcomed and given all reasonable facilities and assist- 
ance in prosecuting their researches. 
The value to a botanist of a period spent in the tropics is inestimable, and 
there is no country more favorable than Ceylon for the study of every form of 
tropical vegetation within a limited area. Every variety of climate is found 
within the island, which has about six times the area of Jamaica, and can be 
easily reached by railway and coach, and there are good accommodations for 
travelers in almost every part of the colony. Branch gardens are kept up 
in four places in different climatic zones of the island. At Henaratgoda, on 
distributed much as at Peradeniya, and the mean temperature is about 82° F. 
A second branch garden is at Hakgala, at an elevation of 5600 feet. It 
occupies an extremely beautiful situation about six miles from the great sani- 
‘arium of Ceylon, Nuwara Eliya. The total area of the garden is 550 acres, 
of which 4o are cultivated, and contain a fine collection of European, Ameri- 
can, Australian, and other temperate plants. The rest of the garden consists 
