at night,
sees with surprize the summits of the palm-trees illuminated by large
fires. These are the habitations of the Guaraons (see Sir W. Raleigh's
Brevis Descript. Guianae, 1594, tab. 4), which are suspended from the
trunks of trees. These tribes hang up mats in the air, which they fill
with earth, and kindle on a layer of moist clay the fire necessary for
their household wants. They have owed their liberty and their
political independence for ages, to the quaking and swampy soil which
they pass over in the time of drought, and on which they alone know
how to walk in security to their solitude in the delta of the
Oronooco, to their abodes on the trees, where religious enthusiasm
will probably never lead any American Stylites (_see_ Mosheim's Church
History). This tree, the tree of life of the missionaries, not only
affords the Guaraons a safe dwelling during the risings of the
Oronooco, but its shelly fruit, its farinaceous pith, its juice,
abounding in saccharine matter, and the fibres of its leaves, furnish
them with food, wine, and thread proper for making cords and weaving
hammocks. It is curious to observe in the lowest degree of human
civilization, the existence of a whole tribe depending on one single
species of palm-tree, similar to those insects which feed on one and
the same flower, or on one and the same part of a plant."--_Humboldt,
Person. Narrative_, vol. v. p. 728.

[K] Davy's Agricultural Chemistry, p. 133.--According to Mr. Knight
the best potatoes, such as the Irish apple, possess much greater
specific gravity than the inferior sorts, and this variety yields
nearly 20 per cent. of starch; while five pounds of the variety called
Captain Hart, yields 12 ounces of starch, and the Moulton White nearly
as much, the Purple Red give only 81/2, the Ox Noble 81/4. There is much
more profit in cultivating the former than the latter sorts; but even
the best kinds degenerate, and new sorts must be procured, as if to
stimulate the ingenuity of man, by preventing his enjoying the gifts
of God, without constant exertion, and observation of the laws which
the Creator has impressed upon his productions. See the Observations
of Thomas Andrew Knight, and the experiments now making by Mr. Maund,
of Bromsgrove.

[L] Duncan. Sacred Philosophy of the Seasons.

[M] Carpenter's Physiology.

[N] Thomson's Chemistry of Organic Bodies: Vegetables, p. 667.

[O] Vere magna et longe pulcherrima sunt etiam illa profundissi