VARIETIES.

THE SOUTH AMERICAN Cow TREE.-Alexander Humboldt remarks that among the many wonderful natural phenomena which he had during his extensive travels witnessed, none impressed him in a more remarkable degree than the sight of a tree yielding an abundant supply of milk, the properties of which seemed to be the same as those of the milk of a cow. The adult Indians would go each morning with their slaves from the village or station on the slope of the mountain chain bordering on Venezuela, where Humboldt was stopping, to a forest where the cow trees grew, and, making some deep incisions into the trees, in less than two hours their vessels, placed under these incisions, would be full. The tree itself attains a height of from forty-five feet to sixty feet, has long alternate leaves, and was described by Linden as Brosimum galactodendron. The milk which flows from any wound made in the trunk is white and somewhat viscid; the flavor is very agreeable. Some time ago, on the occasion of M. Boussingault going to South America, Humboldt requested him to take every opportunity of investigating this subject. At Maracay the tree was first met with, and for more than a month its excellent qualities were daily tested in connection with coffee and chocolate; but there was no opportunity for a chemical analysis. The vegetable milk is up to the richness of cream, the amount of butter in cream being about the same proportion as the peculiar waxy material found in the vegetable milk, a fact that will readily account for its great nutritive powers.-Journal of Forestry.

LEARNING IN CHINA.-The honor of learning is a religion by itself in this country. Learning is the glory of the throne. There are splendid libraries in the palace, vast collections of books carefully catalogued, and selections for the emperor's reference. One of his houses is a study where the young princes are educated; scholars annually explain the sacred books before him; he is the chief examiner for the doctor's degree, and confers his rank upon the senior wrangler. There is a printing-office in his palace, and his poetry is sumptuously bound; and there is a hall in the "purple city" where sacrifice is offered to the tablets of learned men and to the emperor's tutors. Learning is the key to the highest offices of state. In these temple grounds there is a sumptuous hall where the emperor is said to explain the classics and expound the Sacred Edict, a series of ethical apothegms which the greatest of their modern monarchs wrote for his people. It must be a striking scene-the throne, the brilliant yellow and green arches opposite, the maze of white marble balustrades, and all

the dignitaries of the empire kneeling upon circular stone slabs that mark their position, and filling up the grassy court with their gorgeous dresses. On either side of this hall the Nine Classics, carved on tall slabs of black slate, are found under wooden roofs. The

lettering is only on one side, and for the sake of easy reading is divided into pages, of which there are six rows on a slab and seven pages in a row; and as there are fifty characters on a page, the number of letters on one stone must be two thousand one hundred; and though nearly one hundred and fifty years old, the book. Books are more abundant and the printcutting is fresh and as legible as the print of a ing-press is busier than in any other heathen country. It is a work of merit for a man to write and publish and circulate a book at his own expense; and the frequent receptacles for

printed matter, so that none may be trampled

in the mud, show almost a reverence for type : yet there is little inspiration in their literature; it has produced no great work of imagination, no epic, no poet. There are novels, but it is said that they are written at the rate of one in a dynasty; there are broadsheets and advertisements, for men will often place their wrongs before their fellow-citizens in placards on the walls, as they paint their satire upon fans; but there are no living books of the present, unless such as are now induced by contact with the West. The newsman takes round the yellowcovered Peking Gazette, the oldest, smallest, most official, and yet one of the most amusing papers in the world; but there are only one or two and very recent newspapers in the proper sense of the word, and with an immense population capable of reading there is little read. It may be partly from the difficulty of a language which has over 40,000 characters, and keeps 15,000 in steady use, so that an artisan does not profess to know the technical words of any other calling than his own; it must be mainly from that want of power to create, and

that want of stimulus to progress that mark the heathen religions of the East, and have imposed on the people long centuries of stagnation.-Good Words.