table tops.

In conclusion, Mr. Kunz says that "the National Museum collection of gems,
formed by Prof. F.W. Clarke, is now one of the most complete, for species,
in the United States, and as many of the gems are of more than average
merit, and all can have access to them, this is one of the best
opportunities afforded the student in this country."

* * * * *

THE BRAZIL NUT.

[Illustration: THE BRAZIL NUT.]

Every one is acquainted with the hard-shelled, triangular fruit called the
Brazil nut, but there are, perhaps, but few who know anything about the
tree that produces it, or its mode of growth. The Brazil nut tree belongs
to a genus of Lecythidaceae of which there is only one species,
_Bertholletia excelsa_. This tree is a native of Guiana, Venezuela, and
Brazil. It forms large forests on the banks of the Amazons and Rio Negro,
and likewise about Esmeraldas, on the Orinoco, where the natives call it
_juvia_. The natives of Brazil call the fruit _capucaya_, while to the
Portuguese it is known as _castana de maranon_.

The tree is one of the most majestic in the South American forests,
attaining a height of 100 or 150 feet. Its trunk is straight and
cylindrical, and measures about 3 or 4 feet in diameter. The bark is
grayish and very even. At a distance, the tree somewhat resembles a
chestnut. Its branches are alternate, open, very long, and droop toward the
earth. The leaves are alternate, oblong, short petioled, nearly coriaceous,
about 2 feet long by 6 inches wide, entire or undivided, and of a bright
green color. The flowers have a two-parted, deciduous calyx, six unequal
cream-colored petals, and numerous stamens united into a broad, hood-shaped
mass, those at the base being fertile, and the upper ones sterile.

The fruit is nearly orbicular, and about 6 inches in diameter, and has a
hard shell about half an inch thick, which contains from 18 to 24
triangular, wrinkled seeds that are so beautifully packed within the shell
that when once disturbed it is impossible to replace them. When these
fruits are ripe, they fall from the tree and are collected into heaps by
troops of Indians called _Castanhieros_, who visit the forests at the
proper season of the year expressly for this purpose. They are then split
open with an ax, and the seeds (the Brazil nuts of commerce) taken out and
packed in baskets for transportation to Para in the native canoes. The
"meat" that the Braz