536 Observations on the Genus Spathium. 



t. Section of seed, shewing the eight ribs of outer-coat. 



u. Embryo section. 



v. Seed, longitudinal section. 



w. Germinating seed. 



x. Longitudinal section of ditto. 



a. Ditto further advanced. 



y. I. Plumula, extracted from a — II. Plumula in seed before 

 germination. 

 y. More magnified. 

 j3 t g. Progressive states of germinating seed. 

 t Part of leaf magnified. 



Extract of a Letter from Father Joseph Gury, S. J., to his brother. 



Trichinopoly, 26th February, 1840. 



" I will now add here a few words upon the cultivation of the 

 lands. It consists almost entirely in watering them, in those places 

 where water is to be had. Everywhere else, the country is a vast 

 desert. The Indians, like the Swiss mountaineers, turn all their ap- 

 plication to procuring water ; but with this difference, that the Swiss 

 bring it down from the glaciers, by little canals, dug along the brink 

 of dangerous precipices ; whilst the Indians, seated on the end of a 

 beam, raise the water from the well in a bucket attached to the other 

 end. You know what are those see-water wells : there are many of 

 them in France. Conceive, that in the place of the large stone which 

 serves as a counterbalance, two, three, and as many as six men are 

 employed to raise the enormous sheet-iron bucket. When the empty 

 bucket is to be lowered, the men approach the middle of the beam, 

 to the extremity of which it is fixed, and when they wish to raise the 

 water, they walk to the other end. For the purpose of avoiding the 

 risk of falling while at work, they hold with their hands to stakes 

 placed along the beam, which, lest their feet should slip, is indented 

 in the manner of stairs. The person that receives the water, on its 

 being raised, has only to spill it into the canal by which it flows 

 over the fields. When the water is not at a great depth from the 



