GEOGRAPHY AND BOTANY OF THE ISLANDS. 
15 # 
cultivation has been so great that the forests, which at the time when 
it was named by the Dutch, in 1598, covered it to the water’s edge, 
have been by degrees cut down till now they are almost entirely 
destroyed. The cultivation of sugar was introduced by Grovernor 
Labourdonnais in 1740, and in ten years we are told it had almost 
entirely supplanted the useful vegetable products previously grown, 
which were cloves, indigo, cotton, and coffee. In 1761 the aboriginal 
forests had already been cut down to such an extent that the French 
East India Company sent out directions to the Grovernor to stop their 
destruction, but the value of the land had become so great that these 
directions were of very little avail. From 467 tons, in 1812, the amount 
of sugar exported increased till it reached a maximum of 131,000 tons 
in 1860, so that it was calculated at that time that this island, with an 
area of 700 square miles, produced about a tenth of the exported 
sugar of the whole world. The consequence is that the indigenous 
flora of the island, as we have it now, is a mere wreck of what it was 
a hundred years ago, that the remains of the aboriginal forests now 
linger only in the recesses of the hills, that many of the Orchids, Ferns, 
Pandani, and other shade- and damp-loving plants, and the interesting 
endemic trees and shrubs, such as Fcetidia , Fsiloxylon, Labour donnaisia, 
Colophania , Stadtmannia , Fissilia, Hornea , Ludia. Quivisia, Aphloia , 
Monimia , and Tambourissa have either been entirely exterminated or 
become very rare, and that a crowd of introduced trees, shrubs, and 
weeds have replaced the original vegetation to a greater extent than 
in any other part of the world except St. Helena. Our estimate of 
the number of these introduced plants which have become established 
is 269 species, which will be found described in their systematic posi- 
tion intermingled with the indigenous types in the body of the work. 
The number of wild flowering plants and ferns, which we know with 
more or less certainty as inhabitants of the island, is 869. Trees are 
now being extensively planted in the neighbourhood of Port Louis with 
marked advantage to the health of the town. 
The Seychelles are situated 900 miles to the north-east of Mauritius 
in 3-6° south latitude. There are altogether upwards of 30 islands in 
the group, but most of them are very small. They rest upon a raised 
platform of coral and sand, which is about 200 miles long from north to 
south, and 30-40 miles broad from east to west. They differ from 
Mauritius, Bourbon, and Madagascar in the rock of which they are 
composed being entirely granitic. The largest islands of the group are 
