Page:On the characters, properties, and uses of Eucalyptus globulus and other species of Eucalyptus.djvu/5



.—The recent announcement in the daily papers and various journals of the extraordinary influence of plantations of Eucalyptus globulus in destroying the malarious character of marshy districts, and thus preventing the fever which is commonly attributed to them, has naturally excited such a great and widely spread interest that my colleagues on the Council of the Royal Botanic Society of London have invited me to deliver a special lecture to the Fellows and their friends, with the view of making generally known what has been stated in reference to this subject, and, at the same time, to give a sketch of the other properties and uses of this plant and of the species of Eucalyptus generally.

The discovery of the influence of Eucalyptus trees in destroying or improving the pestilential nature of the climate of marshy districts would appear, according to M. Naudin ('Revue Horticole,' 1861, p. 205), to be due to Sir W. Macarthur, of Camden, Sydney, Australia, who, for this purpose, offered, about the year 1860, to forward seeds of the plant for distribution among the colonists of Algeria and other marshy districts of the world. But previously to this period—that is, in 1854 (as mentioned by M. Raveret-Wattel in a report which he published in 1871 in Paris, for La Société d'Acclimatation)—M. Ramel had his attention called while in Melbourne by Dr. Ferdinand von Mueller (now Baron Mueller), the Government Botanist for Victoria and the energetic Director of the Botanic Gardens of Melbourne, to this tree; and in 1856 M. Ramel sent some seeds to Paris, and subsequently, in 1857 and 1860, forwarded further supplies. These seeds were distributed throughout southern Europe, northern Africa, and elsewhere, and the tree is now naturalized in