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By this process six valves are, properly speaking, formed, (and not three, as they are generally counted,) each lobe splitting into two hemispherical valves. The partitions alternate with the lobes, and are formed by the sides of two adjoining cells being, as it were, glued together, and extending to the axis of the capsule, from which they at length completely detach themselves, when it disappears altogether. The seeds or nuts are almost globular.

In Camellia the capsule is very obscurely triangular without any tendency to become deeply three-lobed. It bursts along the middle of each side (consequently alternately with the corners) into three very distinct valves, each of which belongs to two adjoining cells, because the three partitions originate lengthwise from the middle of the respective valves, and are therefore opposite or contrary to these, converging from thence to the triangular axis, from which they gradually separate, leaving it finally unconnected and free. The seeds are of an oval oblong shape, smaller than those of the tea.

The preceding remarks are made with reference chiefly to the Assam Tea and the Nipal Camellia; and purposely without technical precision, the object being simply to convey a general idea of the structure of the two sorts of fruit. But they admit of being applied with safety to all other instances of comparison between the genera in question.

References to the Figures in Plate III.

A The Assam tea. Figs. 1, 2, 3, ripe capsules scarcely enlarged; at 1, seen from below, deeply three-lobed; 2, the common form, commencing to burst; 3, the same completely burst open, and discovering the seeds; 4, the same, the seeds being removed, and one of these represented separately; of the natural size; 5, the lower half of a ripe capsule divided by an horizontal section and the seeds removed, exhibiting the places of dehiscence along the angles or lobes, and the partitions alternating with these and separating from the axis; a little enlarged; 6, outline of a full-grown leaf, of the natural dimensions.

B The Nipal Camellia (C. kissi). Fig. 7, ripe and entire capsule slightly enlarged; 8 and 9, the same after bursting, the free axis being seen in the last figure; 10, a horizontal section as in the tea, much enlarged, representing the places of bursting, which alternate with the angles of the fruit, the partitions which are opposite to the angles of the fruit, and the valves, separating from the free axis; 11, a detached seed, natural size; 12, outline of a full grown leaf.

(Signed),

H. C. Bot. Garden, Dec. 24, 1834.

N. WALLICH, M. D.
Off. Sec. to the Com. of Tea Cult.

Jour. as. Soc.

Assam Tea

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[In the foregoing correspondence, allusion is made to a prior knowledge of the tea-plant of Assam. The following extract from Captain WILCOX's Memoir of a Survey of Assam, published in the Asiatic Researches XVII. p. 448, proves that officer to have been aware of its existence in the hills east of Sadiya:-he writes from Manché, a Khamti village, latitude 27° 29′ 16′′, longitude 97° 29′ :according to promise, a specimen of the tea tree was brought to me from one of the neighbouring low hills; it was a full grown one, that is about five feet high; the leaves were coarse and large, and not numerous." Mr. SCOTT and Captain DAVIDSON had also frequently seen it, and the latter officer says, that black tea is now brought to Goalpara from the Bhotan hills. In 1828, Capts. GRANT and PEMBERTON sent specimens of what the natives asserted to be the tea plant to Mr. Secretary SwINTON, from Mánipur, but for want of the fruit, its genuine nature was not identified. These travellers made tea from its leaves, and found it approach very nearly in flavour to ordinary black tea.—ED.] V.—Abstract of Meteorological Observations at Nasírabád. By Lieut.Col. THOMAS OLIVER.

TABLE I.-Barometer reduced to 32o. Temperature of the External Air, and resulting elevation above Calcutta.

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It is remarkable that the elevations for the nine months, since December, 1833, are all with one exception so much in excess to those for the same months of the former year: I am at a loss to account for this; the average height of my Barometer for the nine months in question being only 026 lower than the average for the same months of the preceding year.

TABLE II.-Mean Temperature of each Month, with the Differences from the Mean

of the Year.

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TABLE III.-Temperature of the Air, and Depression (D) of Wet Thermometer.

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TABLE IV.-Dew Point (S), Comparative Tension (T), and Grains of Aqueous Vapour

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The means for the last year are probably but little affected by the want of observa. tions in November, since the hygrometric state of the air for that month appears to differ not very much from the mean of the year.

[The formula whence the dew-points in the above table are taken will be found in the first Volume of the JOURNAL, p. 508, and in the GLEANINGS IN SCIENCE, i. 193.-ED.]

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