654 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



found in considerable numbers near where the professor made the dis- 

 covery. 



I will name a few of the interesting if not rare plants that I bave 

 collected here during the present season : Ilex monticola, Ilex mollis, 

 Gaylussacia ursina, Dyrhylleia cymosa, Parnassia asanfolia, and Hro- 

 sera rotundifolia. The little Iloustonia serpyllifolia grows on the 

 banks of all the mountain-streams, while H. elongifolia grows on the 

 drier hill-sides. Galax aphylla is interesting to me, on acccount of the 

 beautiful tints which its leaves put on during the winter months, which 

 make it one of the most enlivening features of the landscape during 

 that season. I might fill pages describing plants that occur here, that 

 would be most interesting objects of study to those who have never 

 visited this region ; but my principal object in writing this is to sug- 

 gest the query whether it is not probable that there are undiscovered 

 plants yet to be found in a part of the country which is so virgin and 

 has been so little explored as this. 







SPEECHES AT THE RECENT TYNDALL BANQUET. 



By Professors STOKES and TYNDALL, Sir LYON PLAYFAIE, the Earl of 



DERBY, and Others. 



AT the dinner given to Professor Tyndall in London, on the 29th 

 of June, the chairman, Professor Stokes, in proposing the health 

 of the guest of the evening, said : A social gathering like the present 

 is not an occasion on which it is desirable to enter into detail as to the 

 scientific labors of a man, however eminent. Yet the circumstances of 

 the present meeting seem to demand that I should say a few words on 

 some of Dr. Tyndall's researches. Some of his earliest scientific work 

 related to diamagnetism and magnecrystallic action, and in part of this 

 he was associated with the well-known German physicist, Knoblauch. 

 But I can not dwell on these now. And I will even dismiss with this 

 brief mention his researches on the properties of ice and his application 

 of them to the theory of glaciers and the observations which he made 

 in common with his friend and colleague Professor Huxley, whose 

 necessary absence from among us to-night we so much regret. If I be 

 not trespassing too much on the patience of those who listen to me, I 

 would wish to say a little more on that elaborate series of researches, 

 forming no less than six separate papers in the " Philosophical Trans- 

 actions " in which Dr. Tyndall investigated the relation of simple and 

 compound gases and of vapors to radiant heat, especially radiant heat 

 from sources at a moderate temperature. According to his researches, 

 while the main constituents of the earth's atmosphere, nitrogen and 

 oxygen, are practically diathermous, at least with regard to radiations 

 which can traverse rock-salt, as we know that by far the greater part 



