_March 24th._—Our quiet life at Nazareth, though full of enjoyment for tired travellers, affords little material for a journal. A second excursion along the coast has furnished Mr. Agassiz with new evidence of the rapid changes in the outline of the shore, produced by the encroachment of the sea. So fast is this going on that some of the public works near the coast are already endangered by the advance of the ocean upon the land. During the past week he has been especially occupied in directing the work of a photographist employed by Senhor Pimenta Bueno, who, with his usual liberality towards the scientific objects of the expedition, is collecting in this way the portraits of some remarkable palms and other trees about his house and grounds. One of the most striking is a huge Sumauméra, with buttressed trunk. These buttresses start at a distance of about eight or ten feet from the ground, spreading gradually toward the base; they are from ten to twelve feet in depth. The lower part of the trunk is thus divided into open compartments, sometimes so large that two or three persons can stand within them. This disposition to throw out flanks or wings is not confined to one kind of tree, but occurs in many families; it seems, indeed, a characteristic feature of forest vegetation here. Occasionally the buttresses partially separate from the main trunk, remaining attached to it only at the point from which they start, so that they look like distinct supports propping the tree. I copy here an extract from Mr. Agassiz’s notes upon the vegetation of the Amazons, in which allusion is made to the Sumauméra. [Illustration: Buttressed Tree (Eriodendrum Sumauma).]