feet) in height.  Some people in the Roman Campagna have built houses for themselves on top of the ancient tombs, the walls of which are perpendicular; the American Indians fasten their hammocks as high up as possible to the trees of the malarious forests; and very recently, the engineers of the Panama Railroad had little wooden huts built in the trees in order to procure safety against the terrible outbreak of malaria which occurred during the construction of that iron way.  We owe, finally, to this popular experience the discovery of the specific action of quinine, and the consequent preservation of thousands and thousands of human lives.  Why should we reject a priori and without investigation other useful data which it may yet present to our consideration?  If we wish to make progress in this question of rendering malarious countries healthy, we must always hold before our eyes a double object—­to find a means of prophylaxis which may be accessible to everybody; and, at the same time, to find a means equally within everybody’s reach, to overcome chronic malarial poisoning and its evil consequences.  Science is still too far behind to permit us to hope that we shall soon succeed in discovering this second means by purely scientific researches.  We ought, therefore, to gather together with great care all the facts which point to the possibility of a solution of this problem, and if the measures to which these facts point seem to be incapable of doing harm, we ought to try them boldly, and not be restrained by a false idea of the dignity of science.  The social importance of the problem is too great to allow of its solution being retarded by the fear that scientific men may be accused of having been outrun by the ignorant.  True science has none of these puerile susceptibilities; on the contrary, it deems it an honor to be able to seize all the observations of fact, whoever may have been their first recorder, to put them to the crucial test of methodical experiment, and to convert them into a new stepping stone on the march of human progress.

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HALESIA HISPIDA.

[Illustration:  HALESIA HISPIDA:  HARDY SHRUB:  FLOWERS WHITE.]

This fine hardy shrub is perhaps best known under the name of Pterostyrax, but we think gardeners will, quite independently of botanical grounds, be inclined to thank Messrs. Bentham and Hooker for reducing the genus to the more easily remembered name of Halesia.  Halesia hispida is a hardy Japanese shrub of recent introduction, with numerous white Deutzia-like flowers in long terminal racemes.  A peculiar appearance is produced by the arrangement of the flowers on one side only of the branchlets of the inflorescence.  The botanical history of the plant is well known, and our illustration is sufficient to show the general appearance of the plant.  It is decidedly one of the best recent additions to the number of hardy deciduous flowering shrubs.  For the specimen whence our figure was taken we are indebted to W.E.  Gumbleton, Esq.—­The Gardeners’ Chronicle.