BARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIF. 



165 



with R. laciniatus, Willd., a cultivated species. I 

 have seen R. laciniatus growing in ISIr. Jenner \Yeir's 

 garden at Beckenham, where young seedlings were 

 very freely produced ; and I presume that the cut- 

 leaved brambles of Chislehurst were simply garden 

 escapes. — T. D. A. Cocker ell. 



Lateral Tubercules. — I find that tubercules 

 may be produced in the axils of leaves by artificial 

 means. This may be done by cutting off" a plant of 

 Ranunculus ficaria, L., near the root, and placing it 

 in a well-corked bottle ; after remaining there for a 

 week or two you will see tubercules of various sizes. 

 They are produced by the reversion of a bud into a 

 root, as is often seen in the potato. This proves 

 that fasciculated roots are but modifications of the 

 stem. — Henry E. Griset. 



White Heather. — In the June No. of Science 

 Gossip (p. 141), Mr. D. H. S. Stewart, enquirer of 

 the white-flowering variety of Erica tetralix has 

 been met with elsewhere than in the Scottish High- 

 lands. I am happy to be able to inform him that I 

 have occasionally met with it in the heathy tracts of 

 this part of the country, possibly half-a-dozen times 

 in fifteen years. Last summer my little boy with 

 me found a whole patch of it, and carried home a 

 handful of the white-flowered stalks. I may say that 

 I have never met with the white-flowering heather, 

 though the ordinary purple-flowered variety covers 

 miles of country about us. By the way, would not 

 Mr. Stewart be more correct, if, following Sir J. D. 

 Hooker (* Student's Flora '), he assigned the Ung to 

 the genus Calluna rather than to Erica, — A. Irving, 

 Wellington. 



GEOLOGY, &C. 



The Geology of the Neighbourhood of 

 Winchester. — We have received a new edition of 

 the neat, small, and handy description of the strata 

 and fossils of this district, written for the geological 

 section of the school, by a good geologist, who is 

 evidently too modest to put his name to it. It is a 

 model of compendious, useful, and accurate local 

 information, giving all the thicknesses of the cre- 

 taceous zones in the neighbourhood of Winchester, 

 the anticlinals of the Hampshire chalk, a list of pits 

 and sections, with the names of the fossils found in 

 each, and also a tabular list of fossils (Winchester : 

 J. Wells). 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Are Fossils ever found Alive 1 — At the close 

 of a gossipy geological address some little time ago, 

 I was somewhat startled by an old gentleman who 

 rose to ask, " Are fossils ever found alive, sir ? " 

 *' Well, no," I replied, " they are not," And I then 

 explained for the second time the nature of a fossil. 



The old gentleman, however, was irrepressible. 

 " As a boy," he said, "he was present when a live 

 toad was found in a rock 150 feet below the surface," 

 and his story was so circumstantial that I asked him 

 to put it in writing, which he afterwards did, as 

 follows: — "I am a living witness to what I here 

 state, J. Gittus, In hearing a lecture on the subject 

 of fossils, there were several kinds of animals on the 

 screen, and led me to ask the question whether any 

 of them were ever found alive. Because, when I was 

 a boy, I lived with a man who worked in a stone 

 quarry, and I was very often v/ith him, and in getting 

 the stone we had to blow it up with gunpowder, and 

 one time after blowing it up, one of the men picked 

 up a stone that was noticeable, like two stones joined 

 together, and broke it in two, and in it was a live 

 toad which they afterwards destroyed. The question 

 how did that animal get there, and how did he live 

 pent up in that stone ? — for the place where we found 

 him was very deep, about 150 feet or more from the 

 top of the rock, and he must have been there a length 

 of time shut up in that stone, now this is a mystery, 

 and cannot be fully comprehended by mortal man. 

 But as I lay in my bed one Sunday night, I was 

 thinking about it ; the thought struck me that as there 

 is a great deal of water running through all rocks, that 

 one of the eggs of these animals must have been 

 washed there from some spring or pool, and lodged 

 in some hole of the rock, and come to life, and by 

 the water that flowed through the rock kept alive, 

 but in what way I cannot tell ; but he who placed it 

 there could keep it alive as well as he kept Jonah 

 alive in the fish's belly." 'J. Gittus, Bridport 

 Street, No. 5." So runs the old gentleman's story. 

 A well authenticated account of a similar discovery 

 has recently been sent to me by Miss Lydia M, 

 Hawker, of Bredon, near Worcester, Miss Hawker 

 writes: " On the evening of September 27th, 1886, 

 I was sitting alone in the sitting-room at my home in 

 Bredon, Worcestershire, the other members of my 

 family having retired. On the fire was one large 

 piece of coal the size of a man's head ; this had been 

 put on four hours previously. I attempted to break 

 it to pieces, but, owing to its hardness, I could only 

 chip off fragments. I then drew aside the ash-pan 

 to make room on the hearth for the rest of the lump, 

 set it down, still intact, and kneehng on the hearth- 

 rug, watched for a couple of minutes to assure myself 

 that all was safe. Suddenly my ear caught a sound 

 of crackling and sputtering in the lump. I turned 

 sharply round to reach my little sponge-lamp, and 

 behold ! a small, long-legged, dusky creature, resem- 

 bling a frog, had leapt into the ash-pan, and was 

 hopping about between its bars. I grasped the 

 situation — and the bars — on the instant, but the bars 

 burnt my fingers, so I jumped up for a kettle-holder. 

 When I returned to the rescue, poor froggy had taken 

 shelter (?) under a projecting shoulder of his former 

 home. I gently touched him ; he was dead ; stiff", 

 and sadly shrivelled up. He is still in my possession, 

 he keeps well, and is in good spirits — of wine." — 

 F. T. Spackman, 7, Richmond Road, Worcester. 



Pin in Hen's Egg. — As a reader of Science- 

 Gossip, I wish to bring the following case before 

 your notice, as I consider it most remarkable, and 

 if you think it worihy of your attention, to describe 

 the facts in your interesting paper for the purpose of 

 consideration and enquiry, A friend of mine keeps a 

 quantity of fowls. They are the common kind, 

 usually called, I think 'Barn-door fowls.' On Thurs- 

 day, April 9th, a number of eggs were collected. A 

 few were given to the gardener. His wife boiled one 

 for his breakfast on April loth, and when he cracked 



