The ease with which mere notions come to be regarded as true scientific deductions is the source of much trouble to those who desire to advance no further than solid facts warrant. The reputation the gum trees of Australia, species of Eucalyptus, have received as " Fever trees," is a good illustration of this. It has been shown in these columns that the immense growth of these trees necessarily involved a great draught on the moisture reservoirs of the earth, and that any rapid-growing tree would dry a swamp as well as the Eucalyptus. The benefits were as likely to come from the draining of the soil as from any peculiar virtue in the resinous exhalations from the tree. We have now some actual facts, contributed by J. E. Woods, of Queensland, a botanical writer of considerable reputation. He says the "Hodgkins diggings" is a region famous for fever and ague; yet species of Eucalyptus are not only abundant about the tract, but that prevailing winds blow through hundreds of miles of these trees before they reach the infected district. - Independent.