Buch 
Movement of the International Litterary Exchanges, between France and North America, from January, 1845, to May, 1846. with instructions for collecting, preparing, and forwarding objects of natural history / written by the Professors Administrators of the Museum of natural History at Paris. and instructions relative to anthropology and zoology by M. Isidore Geoffroy St-Hilaire
Entstehung
Seite
60
JPEG-Download
 

GO

in an alcoholic solution of corrosive sublimate (15 to 20 grammes for a litre ofalcohol at 5(i°), or to rub it with a pencil, then to dry it in a leaf of paper, whichrequires hut a few instants With this precaution, all the specimens sent may-be preserved; and for not making use of it, several parcels of plants have arri-ved damaged by insects.

If the plants are fumigated with sulphur, they will he preserved from insects fora long time.

Among those sent, there will be many we have received before; but they willnot be useless.

Hants preserved in herbals, which w'e already possess, will be employed in for-ming special herbals f-r different countries, very useful for the study of botanicalgeography and to facilitate the researches of travellers, either by making ex-changes, with loreign museums, or to enrich the principal museum of thedepartments.

Besides, there are always objects that corrupt by time, which it is useful torenew.

Collections of plants, from whatever country they come, have always a certainnumber of plants which the museum does not posses, or offers them in a differentstate from those we possess, and so arc always interesting, when well made; butthere are countries little known, from which we desire to receive all that can hecollec’ed.

The North-America : the Floridas and southern parts of Louisiana , Arkanzas andTexas, a great part of Mexico, partieulary the northen part, as well as California ,the southern part of Mexico , and the countries comprehended between thatstate and the isthmus of Panama; the great iles of the Antilles, Haiti, Cuba and Jamaica , though formerly explored, are now 7 scarcely represented in ourherbals.

Botany is already cultivated with success in many countries. Travellers can,sometimes, timl herbals already collected; it would be" useful to procure them, espe-cially if they have hut a short time to stay or even a single season, after assuringthemselves that these herbals are made with care. This would be important,especially in countries where the flora has been treated by some resident botanist,and ihekinds and species proper lo these local floras "should, if possible, beobtained.

Collections of wooden talks or strimks of trees.

This collection shorn! he made in a different manner, for the trunks of the mono'cotyledons and ferns, and for those of the dicotyledons. For the first, such as Hiepalms, vaquois or pandamas, the dracoena or dragoniers and the ferns in trees, etc.Whose structure varies in height according to the age of the trees, it would bodesirable to obtain grown and entire trunks, from the root to the top of the tree,when transportation can be effected without difficulty or expense. But when thesize of the trunks and difficulties of transportation are so great that it can nothe conveyed entire, it should be sent in three pieces of 50 centimetres each inlength, taken, the first at the base with the roots, the second in the middle, andthe third from the top with the first clusters of leaves. When the trunksare verylarge, damp and hard to dry, it is well, to quicken their drying, to split themlengthwise through the middle, but the two hal> cs should always bo sent and roundpieces cut cross wise from G to 10 centimetres thick.

For the dycotelodons vegetables one of the principal trunks or a perfectlyhealthy branch should he taken, and a portion of it 40 or 50 centimetres longpreserved; the size best suited for samples is from 10 to 20 centimetres in dia-meter. Generally the age of the trunk or branch should he such as to have atthe same time perfect wood and pulp; for the kinds of wood used for building, it isnecessary that the samples should be taken from trunks large enough to give anidea of the physical qua ities of the woods. The samples should be sent wdth thehark entire. If there is danger that they do not dry well and shrink, they shouldbo sawed lengthwise, at some distance" from the pith, so that it may remainperfect on one of the pieces, and even in that case, it is well to send, besides thetwo halves of w ood sawed lengthwise, an entire round of from 3 to 6 centimetresthick.