Foreign Notices : — West Indies. 285 



but this is the only inconvenience arising from the waste caused 

 by boiling, and no accident can happen, as it will be seen that 

 the water is in an open vessel. It would not be advisable for 

 any person, save for a trial, to have an apparatus of such mate- 

 rials, as the same made of copper would last a lifetime. 



In mentioning tin, I have merely related the facts as they 

 occurred ; and conclude by remarking that cucumbers so grown 

 bear longer than such as have their roots more excited by the 

 strong bottom-heat which is necessary ; the roots also find their 

 way to the extremities, where they are burned and injured by 

 the continual addition of hot linings. 



I need only mention a mistake that occurs (p. 217. line 32.) 

 in the printing of my paper upon the vine, to insure its correc- 

 tion. " The temperature has occasionally, during sunshine, 

 reached 100°, without any disposition in the plant to blow"; 

 which ought to have been, " without any disposition to flag, or 

 droop." To speak of growing vines, deemed and treated as 

 "gross feeders," without roots, must appear sufficiently ridicu- 

 lous ; but the facts are as stated. Another month has elapsed 

 without any perceptible difference between that and the other 

 plants in the house; and the fact, or rather the enquiry, that so 

 forcibly presses itself upon the attention is simply this: If the 

 others are benefited at this stage of their growth by their roots, 

 would not this feel the want of them ? 



Folkstone, April 9. 1842. 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



Art. I. Foreign Notices. 



WEST INDIES. 



EXTRACTS from the Correspondence of Edward Otto, during his Voyage to Cuba, 

 and his Abode there. (Continued from p. 236.) — My hopes of acquiring a richer 

 booty on the southern coast of the island were but sparingly realised. The Eu- 

 ropean winter is felt here, not indeed by cold (as we have more than 20° Reaum. 

 during the day), but by the death-like sleep of vegetation occasioned by the 

 long continued drought, which even kills or paralyses the lower order of 

 animals, which only can exist among green leaves and blossoms. The botanist 

 and zoologist console themselves in anticipating the month of May, the 

 favourite month of the year in the Island of Cuba, as well as in Germany. 



The road from the harbour to Trinidad de Cuba is bordered by hedges of 

 bromelias enclosing fields and plantations ; and among the bromelias are seen 

 many plants of Erythrina Crista galli, and a small fan-palm, which, for the 

 present, I must call Thrinax parviflora, as I have unfortunately not a good 

 Species Plantarum with me, and I can find none that comes nearer it in 

 Swartz's Flora Occidentalis. I have seen this palm on both sides of the road, 

 and even on the road itself, in immense numbers ; they are from 6 in. to 5 ft. 

 in height, and it was extraordinary that not a single one bore fruit. The 

 natives could give me no information respecting them, or whether large tracts 



