202 ANNUAL BECOBD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



trcraes of cold, lasting but a short time, are less injurious than 

 less extreme temperatures lasting for a longer time. Mid- 

 dendorff concluded from his observations in Siberia that the 

 frozen stems and roots could perhaps exist in that condition 

 for many years without injury, with which conclusion Gop- 

 pert unites his own observation on the revival of vegetation 

 that had been buried for many years under glaciers. He 

 gives an extensive list of plants, and low temperatures which 

 they are able to endure with impunity. 



Dr. Sorauer communicates to the Botanische Zeitung for 

 January some observations on the Influence of Moisture on 

 Vegetation. He finds that in dry air branching is greater 

 than in moist air, the length of the leaves is less and the 

 breadth greater, and a moist atmosphere is more favorable to 

 the length of leaf-sheaf, to the growth of the principal stem, 

 and also to the development of the root. In dry air the 

 epidermal cells of the leaves were more numerous and broad- 

 er, the cells between the stomata shorter, and the stomata 

 themselves shorter and more numerous than in moist air. 



Among other papers bearing on the relation between me- 

 teorology and botany, we note a paper by Professor Rein on 

 Mountain and Valley Winds, and their Effect upon the Veg- 

 etation of Volcanic Mountains, read at Cassel. 



C. Eder, in an inaugural dissertation at the Leipsic Uni- 

 versity, republished by the Vienna Academy of Sciences, in- 

 vestigates the Quantity of Aqueous Vapor Expired by Plants, 

 and concludes that the transpiration is a purely physical 

 process, modified by numerous physical conditions, principal- 

 ly by the relative humidity and the quantity of water the 

 air is able to contain, by the temperature, and by the wind. 

 Light of itself has no influence. There is no periodicity ex- 

 cept as determined by these exterior circumstances. 



Lauterbur"; contributes to the Basle Association an excel- 

 lent paper on the Influence of Forests upon the Springs and 

 Rivers of Switzerland. Culmann, in some appreciative re- 

 marks, endorses the desire for a system of telegraphic predic- 

 tions of approaching river floods, etc., in Switzerland. 



The fluctuations in the level of the Great Salt Lake have 

 been especially studied by Mr. G. K. Gilbert, of Powell's Sur- 

 vey, who finds that since 1809 there has been no great change 

 in the water-level, which now averages 10 feet above its level 



