5 1 6 Hope . — The l Sadd } of the Upper Nile . 
remains clear unless masses of the plants become so packed 
together as to produce a block. In most places the hyacinth 
grows to some extent on the muddy shores of the rivers and 
lakes, and the stolons become so entangled that the plants 
whose roots penetrate the soil serve to moor large floating 
masses to the shore. Masses get loose and are blown by the 
wind, even 25 miles, up stream, and there form solid masses. 
Other large masses are carried by the current down to the 
sea. Mr. Clarke says that the American Eichhornia is repre- 
sented in the Bengal swamps by the allied genus Monochoria , 
which has the same habit and mode of growth. 
Mr. Webber describes the method of self-propagation of the 
plant, and notices its introduction into Florida and its present 
distribution in the State. He gives a graphic account of the 
damage caused by obstruction to the rafts in which timber 
is brought down the river, and to fishing with nets, and an 
illustration in his Report, from a photograph, shows at once 
the great width of the St. John and the extent to which it is 
in places covered by Eichhornia , with large river steamers 
imbedded in it. Masses of the plant floating down stream 
get banked up against the long low bridge which carries 
a railway across the river, or estuary, and act as a dam to the 
water. Another illustration shows how the weed, floating 
down stream, is diverted by booms into docks similarly con- 
structed, whence it is taken on shore and used as manure. 
Observations are recorded as to the effect on health of so 
much vegetation collected together in the water, and along 
the river banks ; but it may be doubted whether the weed 
does any harm while floating and growing. In its manner of 
growing and spreading over the surface of sluggish water in 
a continuous sheet the Eichhornia strikingly resembles Pistia 
stratiotes , which plays no mean part in the ‘Sadd’ of the 
Upper Nile, and is so striking a feature in the great swamps 
of Bengal ; but there does not seem to be any tall-growing 
plant in Florida at all corresponding to the Papyrus, Um-soof, 
and Ambatch of the Nile, or to the mocca-mocca of the 
Essequibo. 
