Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 - 1848), Thursday 12 May 1825, page 4


NAVAL ANOMALIES.

Why are vessels of the femanine gender: We read of the King George having lost her bowsprit; the Queen Charlotte sprung a leak; the John Adams stove in her bulworks; the Lady Adams shifted her

ballast; the Jupiter foundered in the Gulf of Mexi-co; and the Emperor on her beam ends. The geo-graphical, astronomical, and political blunders are still more gross. The United States has put into Holmes' Hole; the North America bound round Cape Horn; the Chesapeake cleared out for London; the Massa-chusetts blown off the coast; the Mediterranean high and dry on Cape Cod; the Atlantic condemned as un-seaworthy; Vesuvius capsized in the North Sea; the Free Ocean plundered by pirates; the Equator in lat. 69. N.; the Globe burnt at sea; the Zenith seized for a breach of the revenue laws; the Zodiac in qua-rantine; the Constellation under jury masts; the North Star shipped a sea on the line; the Congress hauled into dry dock; and the Constitution undergo-ing repairs. A few general cases, and we have done. We find the Eagle sailing for the Coast of Guinea; the Æolus waiting for a wind; the Dolphin taking whales off Brazil; the Leopard run-down by the Fly-ing Fish; the Phœnix sunk in ten fathoms water; the Cornucopia short of provisions; the Invincible taken by a Dutch galliot; the Salus with the small-pox on board; the Adamant rotting at the wharf; the Golden Age sold for the benefit of the underwriters; the Howard with a cargo of slaves; and the Palinurus in want of a pilot; not forgetting the Who would a-thought it running foul of the Catch me if you can! WAX TREE OF CHINA. The following account of this singular plant is ex-tracted from Gamella Carcri:— "As for the wax, it is the finest and whitest that may be had, though of bees, and there is such plenty as serves the whole empire. Several provinces pro-duce it, but that of Huquam exceeds all the others as well in quantity as whiteness. It is gathered in the province of Xantung, upon little trees, but in that of Huquam, upon large ones, as big as those of the Indian pagods, or chesnut trees, of Europe. The way na-ture has found to produce it, to us appears strange enough. There is in this province a creature or in-sect, of the bigness of a flea, so sharp at stinging, that it not only pierces the skins of men and beasts, but the boughs and bodies of trees. Those of the province of Xantung are much valued, where the in-habitants gather their eggs from the trees, and carry them to sell in the province of Huquam. In the spring there come from these eggs certain worms, which, about the beginning of the summer, they place at the foot of the tree, whence they creep up, spreading themselves wonderfully over all the branches. Hav-ing placed themselves there, they gnaw, pierce, and bore to the very pith, and their nourishment they convert into wax, as white as snow, which they drive out to the mouth of the hole they have made, where it remains congealed in drops by the wind and cold.— Here the owners of the trees gather it, and make it into cakes as we do, which are sold about China. Du Halde says, however, that the worms fasten on the leaves of the tree, and in a short time form combs of wax, much smaller than the honey comb.