stem of a tree. This plant consists of a single shoot, like the stem of a gilly-flower, but its leaves are larger and thicker, and are as hard as wood. Each stalk produces two or three white transparent flowers, in size and shape resembling a lily, and equally odoriferous with that flower. They may be preserved fresh on their stalks for more than two months, and for several days when plucked off. This plant may be transported to almost any distance; and will produce flowers annually, if merely hung up on a nail. In the northern parts of Cujo there are mines of gold and copper, but they are not worked owing to the indolence of the inhabitants. It has also rich mines of lead, sulphur, vitriol, salt, gypsum, and talc or asbestos. The mountains near the city of Juan are entirely composed of white marble, in stratified slabs of five or six feet long by six or seven inches thick, all regularly cut and polished by nature. From this the inhabitants prepare an excellent lime, which they use in building bridges over the streams and canals of irrigation. Between the city of Mendoza and La Punta, on a low range of hills, there is a large stone pillar, 150 feet high and 12 feet diameter, called the giant, on which there are certain marks or inscriptions resembling Chinese characters. Near the Diamond river there is another stone, having marks which appear to be characters, and the impression of human feet, with the figures of several animals. The Spaniards call it the stone of St Thomas; from a tradition handed down from the first settlers, said to have been received from the native Indians, that a white man with a long beard, formerly preached a new religion from that stone to their ancestors, and left the impression of his feet, and the figures of the animals that came to hear him, as a memorial of his sanctity.