various-coloured flowers, which, however, have this draw back, that they have no scent. It appears to have been cultivated by the Chinese from time immemorial, and all our earlier introductions were obtained from that country. According to the Ilortiis Kcivensis, it was introduced into England by Robert James, Lord Petre, before the year 173 ( J ; and the Waratali, or anemone-flowered variety, which has broad outer petals and a crowd of smaller central ones, is said to have been introduced at the same time. The double white, a variety as yet unsurpassed in beauty, its flowers being so pure in colour, and so full and symmetrically imbricated in form, was introduced in 1792 ; as also was the double striped, a free blooming hardy kind, with rosy red flowers irregularly blotched with white, which though surpassed in size and richness of colouring by more modern European varieties, is still too useful to be altogether dis carded. The latest direct importations are probably the hexangular-flowered Camellia (hexangularis), introduced from China by Mr Fortune in 1846, a variety which, like that called Lady Hume s Blush (incarnata), has the pointed petals laid directly over each other, so that the face of the flower becomes six-angled ; and the fish-tailed Camellia, introduced in 1 86 1 , a variety in which the leaves are sharply serrated at the margin and forked at the apex, so that they
resemble in form the tail of a fish.To be seen in their full perfection Camellias should be planted out in borders of properly prepared soil under glass ; but these borders should be very effectually drained, and of such a mechanical composition as never to become soddened, for the plants require to be almost deluged with water when making their growth, and when develop ing their blossoms. The borders, moreover, when the plants have become well established, and the soil is full of roots, will require to be assisted by top-dressings, such as sheep or deer dung, and by applications of liquid manure. They by no means require a heated structure, nor too much sun light, but when well established in a cool and somewhat shaded conservatory, may become a source of infinite delight to those who have a love for flowers. As instances of the great esteem in which the Camellia is held, it is only neces sary to refer to the immense number of cut blooms sold during the season in Covent Garden market, and the high prices which they realize while yet comparatively scarce.
The genus Camellia is limited to some six or seven species, natives of India and Japan. Of these, besides C. japonica, another named C. rcticulata, a native of the island of Hong-Kong, is highly prized in gardens for its very handsome blossoms. It differs from C. iaponica in its downy branches, and reticulated, not glossy leaves, and also in its much larger flowers. The double-flowered variety of this plant lias a most gorgeous appearance, specimens of the flowers having been measured which were as much as twenty inches in circumference.
Both C. Sasanqua ( ? olcifcra), and 0. drupifera ( Kissii), the former inhabiting Japan and China, the latter Cochin-China and the mountains of India, are oil-yielding plants. The oil of C. Sasan- qua (of which Sasankwa is the native Japanese name) has an agree able odour, and is used for many domestic purposes ; it is obtained from the seeds by subjecting them to pressure sufficient to reduce them to a coarse powder, and then boiling and again pressing the crushed material. The leaves are also used in the form of a decoc tion by the Japanese women, for washing their hair ; and in a dried state they arc mixed with tea on account of their pleasant flavour. The oil of 0. drupifera, which is closely allied to C. Sasanqua, is used medicinally in Cochin-China, its flowers also are odoriferous, all the other known species, except the Indian C. lutcscens, being in odorous.
The genus Camellia is very closely allied to that of the tea-plant ( Then) ; indeed so close is the affinity that some botanists have pro posed to unite them. Dr Seemann, however, in a memoir published in the Transactions of the Linnean Society (xxii. 337), points out their distinctions, from which it appears that while in Camellia the flowers are erect and sessile, the calyx many-leaved with deciduous sepals, the interior stamens (those within the monadelphous ring) twice the number of petals, and the styles five in number, the flowers of Thea are pedunculate and nodding, the calyx five-sepalcd with persistent sepals, the interior stamens equalling the petals in number, and the styles three. So close, however, is the agreement between them that the red-flowered Camellia Susanqua, as it was for a long time called in gardens, has, as a result of more intimate acquaintance with its structure, to be referred to Thea, under the name of Thea mali flora. Bentham and Hooker, in their new Genera Plantar-urn, have again united Thea with Camellia, under the latter name, preferring to regard the teas as forming a section of the genus Camellia, which conclusion has been adopted by Professor Dyer in the Flora of British India (i. 292), where the Thea assamica of authors is referred to as the possible wild stock of the tea-plant, and the name of Camellia thcifera adopted for the combined form called T. chinensis by Linnteus and Seemann.
CAMEO, a term of doubtful origin, applied to engraved work executed in relief, on hard or precious stones, on imitations of such stones in glass called " pastes," or on the shells of molluscous animals. A cameo is thus the converse of an intaglio, which consists of an incised or sunk engraving executed in the same class of materials. The word cameo is generally regarded as being derived from the Arabic camea, a charm or amulet; but a number of other derivations have been suggested, among which a highly allegorical origin of the word from the Arabic camaut, the camel s hump, implying any object in relief, has been maintained by an eminent authority. Cameo- cutting is an art of much more recent introduction than the sister art of intaglio-engraving. The earliest known traces of any attempt at cutting gem-figures in relief are seen in certain Phoenician and Etruscan scarabei, in which the back of the beetle has been utilized for the faint delineation of another and quite different figure. One of the most ancient known cameos, of which tlie date can be fixed with certainty, consists of a sardonyx of three layers with portrait heads of Demetrius Soter and his wife Laoclice, which must have been engraved between the years 162 and 150 B.C.
The materials which ancient artists used for cutting into cameos were chiefly those siliceous minerals which, under a variety of names, present various strata or bands of two or more distinct colours, and properly the name cameo should be restricted to work executed in relief on such banded stones. The minerals, under different names, are essentially the chalcedonic variety of quartz, and the differences of colour they present are due to the presence of variable proportions of iron and other foreign ingredients. These banded stones, when cut parallel to the layers of different colours, and when only two coloured bands white and black, or sometimes white and black and brown are present, are known as onyxes, but when they have with the onyx bands layers of carnelian or sard, they are termed sardonyxes. The sardonyx, which was the favourite stone of ancient cameo- engravers, and the material in which their masterpieces were cut, was procured from India, and the increased intercourse with the East by the way of Egypt after the death of Alexander the Great had a marked influence on the development of the art. Cameo-cutting attained the zenith of its pristine perfection in Rome during the first two centuries of the Christian era, the chief works being portraits of the reigning families, and allegorical illustrations of their glories. Contemporaneously with the production of the finest works in Oriental precious stones, pastes or imitations in glass were made in in credible numbers to meet the requirements of the classes who could not afford the other necessarily rare and costly luxuries. Both in perfection of material and in artistic merit these imitations were, in the best period, of extra ordinary merit. The Barberini or Portland vase in the British Museum is a rare example of the skill of both the glass-worker and engraver on glass of ancient times.
come down to the present day are the Great Agate of the Sainte Chapelle in the Bibliotheque Xationale, Paris, and
the Augustus Cameo in the Vienna collection. The former
