appeared to be some foundation for Schwabe's theory, but as there occurred a minimum of spots in 1844 and another in 1855, we can understand that Messrs. De la Rue, Stewart, and Loewy should not regard Schwabe's views with favour. They record that on February 12th, 1844, and from June to August, 1855, the sun was without spots or faculæ.

Professor Brayley points out the importance of the spectroscopical examination of the vicinity of the sun when totally eclipsed, for the determination of the nature and extent of its luminous atmosphere. He considers that this atmosphere is partially identical with the Zodiacal Light, and he suggests that an attempt should be made to determine the true nature of the Zodiacal Light by means of spectrum analysis.

Professor Brayley adds that he has arrived at the conclusion that in all probability the bright-line or monochromatic spectra, from which Mr. Huggins has inferred the gaseous constitution of certain nebulæ, are in reality due to the luminous atmospheres of their constituent stars or suns. We believe that Mr. Huggins has already considered this view, and shown it to be inconsistent with known laws.

Mr. Stoney supplies a paper "On the Connection between Comets and Meteors." In January last M. Leverrier pointed out that the streams of meteors which produce star-showers must have been in compact clusters when they underwent the great perturbations which brought them into permanent connection with the solar system. And Mr. Graham has shown that the meteoric iron which reaches the earth must have been at some previous time red-hot; and that when last red-hot it was acted on by hydrogen under considerable pressure-a pressure of perhaps six or more atmospheres. Mr. Stoney makes use of these inferences in the endeavour to trace what the physical connection between comets and meteors has been. We must point out one important point in which his argument fails. He lays great stress on the difference between the assumed period of the November shooting-star system and the period of Tempel's comet; the former 33.25 years and the latter 33.18 years. In fact, his argument seems to require that some such difference should exist. But in the first place it is well known that the period of 33 years assigned to the meteors by Adams and Leverrier was never meant for more than a first approximation, and that a period of 33.18 years would account quite as well for all the phenomena yet observed. In the second place, we have no assurance that 33 18 years is the exact period of Tempel's comet. This is Dr. Oppolzer's determination, but other calculators obtained different results. We have assuredly no evidence that the difference of '07 years between the periods of the meteor-stream and comet is one that can be insisted upen.

Professor Masters, of Kishnaghur College, Bengal, describes a shower of meteors seen at 2 A.M. on December 12. They shot divergingly and with great rapidity from a point situate in about 136° of right ascension and 29° or 30° of north declination.

Mr. Stone has estimated the longitude of the Sydney Observatory from observations of the moon and moon-calculating stars made in the years 1859 and 1860. His result gives for the difference of time between Sydney and Greenwich, 10h. 4m. 47.32s.

4. BOTANY, VEGETABLE MORPHOLOGY, AND

PHYSIOLOGY.

ENGLAND.-A Handy Book for Collectors of Cryptogams. — The Rev. W. Spicer has translated, and Mr. Hardwicke has published, a little book on Cryptogams, by Johann Nave, which we feel sure must be very useful to those who wish to study and collect these plants. Methods of preparing and collecting Marine Algæ, Diatoms, Desmids, Fungi, Lichens, and Mosses are given in great detail. Strange instruments to be used in tearing or raking up sea-weeds are figured and described, and all the various appliances in favour with collectors of Diatoms and Desmids are brought before the reader. Twenty-six neat little plates, containing drawings of the most striking forms of the plants to which the volume is dedicated, are dispersed through its pages. The book is in size small enough for the pocket, and may fairly be recommended to all who are in want of instruction in the somewhat difficult and careful manipulation required in order to preserve specimens of Cryptogamic plants.

Sowerby's English Botany.-The new, greatly enlarged, and revised edition of this celebrated work, now being published under the direction of Mr. Boswell Syme, with popular descriptions of plants by Mrs. Lankester, has come to the conclusion of its seventh volume. Nearly four-fifths of the British Flora have now been completed, the last part issued finishing with the Amarantaceæ. Whilst this is going on, Professor Babington, of Cambridge, is supervising the issue of a supplement to the previous edition of 'Sowerby's Botany,' which is to contain descriptions and figures of all the species of plants recognized as British since the issue of the original work. Mr. Salter, late of the Geological Survey, is executing the plates, and Professor Babington's name is a guarantee for the letterpress. There appears to be some difficulty in obtaining subscribers for this supplement, which, however, we can heartily commend.

The Botanical Department of the British Museum. - The principal business of the department during the past year has, we

learn from the report, consisted in the re-arrangement (with very large additions) of the general collection of Algae, of the extensive order of Euphorbiacea, of the Lycopodiaceæ, Nymphæaceæ, and of a portion of the Composite. Also in the naming, arranging, and laying into the general Herbarium of the remainder of Mr. Charles Wright's extensive collections made in Cuba and New Mexico; of the extensive collection formed by the late Mr. David Douglas, in North Western America and California; of a large number of Ferns, collected in Ceylon by Mr. Thwaites, in Venezuela by M. Moritz, and in English gardens by Mr. John Smith; of Piperaceæ, from various collections; of Dr. Wallich's collection of Nepalese Oaks; of numerous plants from Brazil and from the Arctic regions; of palms from various regions; of numerous European collections, and of several important collections of Cryptogamic plants, including American and other Mosses. Also in the examination and arrangement of the valuable collection of Cycades, presented by Mr. James Yates; of plants from the Tyrol; Ferns purchased from Mr. John Smith, of Kew; of fruits of Capulifera and Coniferæ, in the general fruit collection; of recent and fossil woods; and of the late Dr. Greville's very extensive and important collection of Diatomaceæ. Altogether, this seems not a bad year's work, but those who know the vast stores of hay packed away in the recesses of the Botanical Department of the British Museum will feel that even thus they may never live to see the national Herbarium arranged throughout.

Quinine Plants in India.-"It is a good thing that India seems likely to be able to supply the whole world with quinine, for not only was the American supply uncertain, it was actually threatened with extinction, owing to the reckless way in which the Indians killed the trees in the process of stripping, planting of course no new ones. Mr. M'Ivor, who has been ably seconding Mr. Clement R. Markham's efforts at chinchona planting, finds that by removing only one long strip of bark and immediately covering the wound with moss the bark is renewed, provided the cambium be not injured. The new bark, moreover, is thicker and richer in alkaloids than the original one. Indeed, Mr. Broughton, the newly appointed quinologist' at Ootacamund, tells us that the average yield of cultivated plants is nearly two per cent. higher than that of the wild American samples-7 per cent. instead of from 4:16 to 5.66 per cent. The only drawback is that the kind which grows most freely in India is the red bark, the quinine from which is usually mixed with a considerable portion of chinchonidine and other allied alkaloids, along with resin and colouring matter not easily separable. Still, however, since we shall use probably more and more quinine every year, it is better to have the mixture than none at all. Mr. Broughton suggests that

these amorphous alkaloid substances' may have virtues of their own; but possibly, with more perfect processes, they may be found separable. Anyhow, it is better to take what India can give us for dispensary use, than to prepare (as they do in some dispensaries) their mistura quinix out of concentrated infusion of quassia and calumba, with a dash of aromatic sulphuric acid."

It is reported that Mr. Clement R. Markham is to join the Abyssinian expedition in a civil (scientific?) capacity.

FRANCE.-Monstrosities becoming New Species in Plants.M. C. Naudin, in a late number of the Comptes Rendus,' mentions some very remarkable cases of this phenomenon, which have, of course, a very close bearing on Darwin's hypothesis. The first case mentioned is that of a Poppy (Papaver officinale), which took on a remarkable variation in its fruit-a crown of secondary capsules being added to the normal central capsule. A field of such poppies was grown, and M. Göppert, with seed from this field, obtained still this monstrous form, in great quantity. Deformities of Ferns are sometimes sought after by fern-growers. They are now always obtained by taking spores from the abnormal parts of a monstrous Fern, from which spores Ferns presenting the same peculiarities invariably grow. Some facts with regard to gourds are mentioned, but the most remarkable case is that observed by Dr. Godron, of Nancy. In 1861 that botanist observed, amongst a sowing of Datura tatula (the fruits of which are very spinous), a single individual of which the capsule was perfectly smooth. The seeds taken from this plant all furnished plants having the character of this individual. The fifth and sixth generations are now growing without exhibiting the least tendency to revert to the spinous form. More remarkable still, when crossed with normal Datura tatula, hybrids were produced which, in the succeeding generation, reverted to the two original types, as true hybrids do. M. Naudin is not very happy in his remarks upon these highly interesting facts. He urges that they give reason to believe that the origin of species by transmutation has not been a very slow process of natural selection; but rather that monstrosities have been produced right and left, according to the Lamarckian speculation.

GERMANY.-The Potato.-A wealthy citizen of Berlin has applied to the municipality of that town for a site on which to erect a statue of Francis Drake, as the introducer of the potato into Europe, and offers to subscribe 2,2507. towards the statue. This seems an easy way of settling the doubt lingering about the early history of the potato, and to which the corrupted Spanish name which the plant bears in English, and the corrupted Italian it bears in German, or the unmeaning French and Dutch ones, give no clue.

The Colouring Matters of Algæ.-Dr. Cohn, in a paper to which

we recently referred, has distinguished two bodies soluble in water, the one found in Phycochromaces, the other in Florideæ in conjunction with Chlorophyll, to the first of which he gives the name Phycocyan, and to the second Phycoerythrin. These remarkable bodies give very distinct absorption-bands when examined by means of the spectroscope, and are also highly fluorescent, Phycocyan giving a fine carmine reflection, whilst the light it transmits is pale blue, and Phycoerythrin giving a yellow fluorescence, and transmitting the red rays. At a recent meeting of the Microscopical Society of London, Mr. Sheppard exhibited a fluid, having the properties of a solution of Phycocyan, which he had obtained from a vegetable growth in a spring in Kent. He contended that the colour was produced by the action of monads on albuminous substances which he had placed in the water with the vegetable matter. It appears, however, that the vegetable encrustation abounded in Oscillariæ, Batrachospermum, &c., and from the drawings and description given of the spectrum of the fluid and its fluorescence, there is no doubt that he had simply obtained a solution of the Phycocyan of Dr. Ferdinand Cohn. The colouring matters of the lower forms of plants and their relations to Chlorophyll and the physiology of plant-life form a very important and almost unexplored field of research.

5. CHEMISTRY.

(Including the Proceedings of the Chemical Society.)

BUT few papers call for notice on this occasion. The subject of water-analysis continues to attract a good deal of attention; and additional interest has been given to the matter by the communications of Professor Wanklyn and Messrs. Chapman and Smith. The first-named gentleman read a paper on the subject at the last meeting of the Chemical Society, an abstract of which will be found in our report of the Proceedings of the Society. Several joint communications have also been made to the Laboratory' during the past three months.

The researches of the gentlemen named have been devoted to the determination of ammonia and matters capable of yielding ammonia; and their results differ widely from those of other experimenters. We are told, for example, that the waters we have hitherto been taught to consider the purest and best fitted for town supplies, such as Loch Katrine and Bala Lake water, contain a larger amount of albumenoid putrescible matters than the waters at present supplied to the metropolis. Thus, quoting from Pro