66 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



•colour as it was before manipulation. I believe 

 botanists would find this mordant invaluable, it being 

 so cheap, its use so simple, and it can be had of any 

 pharmacist. I presume your correspondent has ren- 

 dered cupric sulphate, mentioned in ^Mr. Kitton's 

 communication, by sulphur chlorate, a non-existing 

 body." 



-George Stacker, 



Nut Trees. — The Common Xut [Cory Ins avel- 

 latta) has this y^ar shown some odd vagaries in regard 

 to flowering. As early as October several trees were 

 hanging ' forth their full blown catkins, but though 

 these were most abundant the female flowers were 

 difficult to find at all. So up to the present time nut 

 trees come into flower one after the other, and at 

 the present moment there will be found in every 

 hedgerow many nut trees in which the catkins 

 have scarcely begun to expand their flowers. Never 

 before have I observed such an amount of irre- 

 gularity in the flowering of a plant which is 

 usually very regular in this respect. The flowering 

 of the nut this year, whether early or late, is very 

 abundant in as far as the male flowers are concerned ; 

 but it has yet to be seen whether the female flowers 

 will be equally abundant. — James Biichman. 



Buxus SEMPERVIRENS. — M. Guizot, in " Alfred 

 le Grand " (Paris, loth ed. p. 14), after a' quotation 

 from Asser and referring to the'subject of his memoir, 

 says: "II naquit en I'annee 849, dans la demeure 

 royale de Wantage, au milieu des forets du Berkshire 

 07I ahonde le biii." Although the statement which 

 I have emphasised by the use of italics, is in the 

 present tense, it would seem to me more reasonable 

 to suppose that it has reference to the period of which 

 the author wrote, than to the time ^\'hen it was 

 written, and if this supposition be correct, the 

 inference is, that he derived his authority for it also 

 from Asser. Possibly some of your readers, who 

 have access to " De Rebus Gestis Alfredi," may be 

 able to say whether any reference to the box appears 

 in that work, as if so, it would be strong evidence in 

 favour of its being indigenous in Britain. — Thomas 

 Dennis, J/ull, 



Yorkshire Plant Names. — The following is a 

 list of Yorkshire plant names now in use in the 

 vicinity of Whitby. " Bairnwort " or "banwood," 

 the common dzAsy [BeUis perennis) ; " boretree," the 

 elder (Samii/ciis nigra) ; " buns " or " bunnons," the 

 cow-parsnip (Hcracleum spJiondyliiun) ; "cathaws," 

 the fruit of the hawthorn {Cratccgits oxyacaiitha) ; 

 "catwhin," the dog rose {Rosa canisia), the fruit of 

 this plant are called " cattijugs ; " "cheesecakes,"' the 

 bird's-foot lotus {Lotus corniciclatus) ; "cup rose" or 

 "popple," the red poppy {Papaver rhccas) ; "foal- 

 foot," the coltsfoot {Tiissilago farfara) ; "gowland," 

 the corn marigold {Chrysanthemtiin segetiim) ; " ivin," 

 the ivy {Hedera Helix) ; "sea-tang " or " tangles," the 

 common marine plant Laminar ia digitata ; ' ' segums, ' ' 



ih.e TTigwort {Sen ecio Jacobcra) ; "sour dockens," the 

 common sorrel {Riimex acetosd) ; "whin," the furze 

 {Ulex Eitrop(nis) ; "yakerons, " acorns, the fruit of 

 the oak {Qiierats pediinculata), — T. P. Dcotchon. 



GEOLOGY. 



Veins and Cleavage. — Mr. Malet, in his court- 

 eous remarks on " A Visit to a Welsh Stone Quarry," 

 differs from me as to (i) the mode of filling of the 

 veins, and (2) the origin of cleavage. In his opinion 

 (i), the quartz veins were filled by a cold solution of 

 silica percolating from above, which silica was derived 

 from the mass of mud that formed the rock. But I 

 think there is no evidence of even a moderately con- 

 centrated cold solution of silica in nature ; on the 

 contrary, we have hot solutions of it in the geysers of 

 Iceland, the hot springs of California, and elsewhere. 

 Professor Arthur Phillips states that in the Steamboat 

 Springs of Nevada the silica shows the ribbon-like 

 structure so common in lodes ; in fact, these and 

 other springs are examples of mineral veins in process 

 of being filled, and greatly strengthen the hypothesis 

 that most lodes have been filled from below by hot 

 mineral solutions.* I am aware that many smaller 

 veins — as those of calcite in limestone rocks — have 

 been filled in by percolation from above and from the 

 sides, but as the quartz veins mentioned in my paper 

 occur in the neighbourhood of lodes, I suppose them 

 to have been filled in a similar way to the latter. 



Let us now turn to (2) the more important subject 

 of cleavage.f According to Mr. Malet, a cleavage- 

 plane is merely the greater or less separation of two 

 contiguous lines of particles or " fibres," which sepa- 

 ration is produced by what may not be inaptly termed 

 a process of simple desiccation. The following is 

 Mr. Malet's starting-point :—" Atoms, when sub- 

 siding in water, become correlative to its force, and 

 settle down in every line, from horizontal to vertical, 

 under their own power of gravitation in still water, 

 or under the power of any force capable of acting on 

 them in water that has motion."J The microscope 

 negatively disproves this assertion ; it shows no evi- 

 dence of any such fibrous arrangement of particles; on 

 the contrary, a thin section of shale is seen by it to be 

 made up of particles of various sizes and shapes, with 

 their longer axes placed at every conceivable angle. 

 But slate— which was once shale — does show a rough 

 parallel arrangement of particles, the longer axes 

 have, as it were, been turned so as to point all one way. 

 This structure has clearly been developed since the slate 

 was in the condition of shale, and most geologists say 



* See Prof. Phillips' "Contribution to the History of Mineral 

 Veins," Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. .xxxv., 1S79, p. 390, 

 it sea., and Mr. Laur, " Annales des Mines," 1863. 



1 Through Mr. Malet's kindness, I have been able to refer for 

 detaib of his theory to his own very interesting work, " Incidents 

 in the Biography of Dust." 



X " Bioftraohy of Dust " p. 241- 



