NOTICES OF BOOKS. 63 
occasion, another flower produced the following result :— Temperature 
of the surrounding air 18? Réaum., of the water 163° Réaum. ; at the 
time the thermometer was sunk into the flower, it eau exactly 163? 
and in the course of fifteen minutes it rose in the flower to 324° Réaum. 
One of the largest leaves (54 feet in diameter, with an erect margin 
of two inches) has confirmed the test of not only supporting a strong 
boy, five years and four months old, but on another trial it sustained a 
weight of one hundred pounds, a thin piece of wood three feet broad 
being previously placed across the leaf. 
[Kindly communicated by Professor Lehmann at our request.—JN. 
Wallick.] 
= 
NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
Popular History of Brrrisu Ferns and the allied Plants, comprising 
the Club-mosses, Pepperworts, and Horsetails ; by Tuomas MOORE, 
F.L.S. &e. London: Reeve and Benham. 
We have spoken favourably in our Journal of Mr. Moore’s He 
book of British Ferns,’ intended as a guide and companion in Fern- 
culture; a work, as its title expressly indicates, more immediately 
bearing on the cultivation of British Ferns, with neat woodcuts, The 
present is a popular, yet not unscientific, history of all known British 
Ferns, using the word Ferns in the ordinary acceptation of the term, 
Filices of Linnzeus ; and certainly we have rarely, if ever, seen a publi- 
cation relating to plants where the object aimed at is more fully accom- 
plished than in the elegant volume now before us. It is quite true 
that much of its charm may arise from the well-arranged and well- — 
executed and coloured plates, fresh from the hands of Mr. Fitch. But 
we are equally bound to say that the descriptive matter is got up with 
good taste and good feeling too. There is not that desire to multiply 
species upon the slightest variation in form, or excess or diminution c 
pubescence, or scales, colour, &e., which is characteristic of the writings 
of so many authors who confine their studies to a partial view of any 
particular kingdom of nature, a single family, for example, and espe- 
cially of the family of one particular district of country. He does 
not go the whole length of species-making, nor does he quarrel with 
others who differ from him; and it is easy to foresee that such a line 
of conduct is eminently calculated to recommend the already, we believe, 
. popular subject of Brith Ferns. 
