The Samoan group of islands in the South Sea lies between the latitudes of 13 deg. 30' and 14 deg. 30' S, and the longitudes of 168 deg. and 173 deg. W. In some of these islands there is a most remarkable tree which well deserves a place in our roll of extraordinary productions. It is a species of banyan (_Ficus religiosa_), and is called by the natives Ohwa. Our sketch gives a good idea of some of these trees. The pendant branches of many of them take root in the ground to the number of thousands, forming stems from an inch to two feet in diameter, uniting in the main trunk more than eighty feet above the ground, and supporting a vast system of horizontal branches, spreading like an umbrella over the tops of the other trees. THE PLAGUE IN ENGLAND. The Register of Ramsay, in Huntingdonshire, mentions 400 people who died there of the plague, in or about February 1665, and that it was introduced into the place by a gentleman, who first caught the infection by wearing a coat, the cloth of which came from London: the tailor who made the coat, with all his family, died, as did no less than the number above mentioned. But the ravages made by the plague in _London_, about 1665, are well known: it was brought over from Holland, in some Levant goods, about the close of the year 1664: its progress was arrested, in a great degree, by a hard frost which set in in the winter; but as the spring of 1665 advanced, its virulence advanced. Infected houses were shut up and red crosses painted on the doors, with this inscription, "Lord have mercy upon us." Persons going to market took the meat off the hooks themselves, for their _own_ security, and for the _Butcher's_, dropped their money into pans of vinegar; for it was supposed that even their provisions were tainted with the infection. In the months of August and September the greatest mortality occurred; for the deaths of one week have been estimated at 10,000! It may be supposed, that no great accuracy existed in the Registers, to afford a correct estimate; for, in the parish of Stepney, it is said they lost, within the year, 116 sextons, grave-diggers and their assistants; and, as the disorder advanced, the churchyards were incapable of holding more bodies, and large pits were therefore dug in several parts, to which the dead were brought by cartloads, collected by the ringing of a bell and the mournful cry of "Bring out your dead." Add to this, that these carts worked in the night, and no exact account was kept, as the clerks and sextons were averse to a duty exposing them to such dangerous consequences, and often carried off before such accounts as they had taken were delivered in. All the shops were shut up, grass grew in the most public streets, until about December 1665, when the plague abated, and the citizens who had left their abodes for the country, crowded back again to their residences. The computation is, that this horrible