POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



*37 



ice-foot, which collects in winter beneath 

 the sea-cliffs, is placed in the best possible 

 position to receive any seeds or masses of 

 soil which may fall during the winter. This 

 shore-ice is drifted away in the spring, and 

 may easily discharge its burden on some far- 

 distant shore uninjured, and with the seeds 

 just ready to germinate. Winds, migrating 

 birds, and migrating mammals, would all 

 help to transport seeds across the straits. 



Early Title-pages. In the earliest print- 

 ed books and in manuscripts any information 

 on the workmanship of the book was written 

 at the end, in what is called the colophon. 

 It was not till 1470, according to Mr. A. W. 

 Follard, in his History of the Title-page, that 

 a title-page was introduced, and in England 

 not till shortly before 1490, when W. de 

 Machline issued one to his little book on the 

 pestilence. Caxton never used them, but 

 Wynkyn de Worde employed them in nearly 

 all his books. At the beginning of the next 

 century are found the most interesting, if 

 not the most artistic, titles. Popular de- 

 mand then required a large woodcut on the 

 front page, whatever was the subject of the 

 book. Even school-books were adorned with 

 representations of masters and scholars, the 

 most striking object in the cut being a for- 

 midably large birch. The nature of most of 

 the religious books required a frontispiece 

 containing devils. The little books of poetry 

 and romance which issued from the press by 

 hundreds contain the best specimens of this 

 kind of art. Looking at these title-pages 

 from the artistic side alone, England makes 

 but a poor show against France and Italy. 

 Nothing could be finer than the title-pages of 

 the Parisian books in the early part of the 

 sixteenth century. After this time the deca- 

 dence began, and the printers finally became 

 " dreadfully utilitarian and unromantic." 



The Primary Color of Leaves. Having 

 concluded, as has already been mentioned in 

 the Monthly, that the primary color of flow- 

 ers is white, from which the characteristic 

 hue is developed as a secondary color, E. 

 Williams Hervey asks, in Garden and For- 

 est, What is the primary color of the green 

 parts of the plant? Leaves do not gener- 

 ally have a different color at the base from 

 the usual one, as has been shown to be 



the case with flowers ; and they rarely, ex- 

 cept in the purplish leaves of vigorous sap- 

 lings and a few cultivated plants, have any 

 other color than green. But the leaves of 

 some cultivated plants are spotted, striped, 

 or bordered with white ; bleached celery 

 stalks are white, and the inner leaves of 

 cabbages are white. From these instances 

 '" we get pretty strong hints that green is 

 derived from white. There remains one 

 more clew. Every botanist knows that the 

 seed contains a miniature and rudimentary 

 plant; that generally the most prominent 

 parts of the seed are the cotyledons or seed- 

 leaves, and these are, of course, the first 

 leaves of every species of plants. Now, if 

 we ascertain the color of these seed-leaves, 

 we find the original color of all leaves. 

 This color is uniformly white ; ... of course, 

 we do not refer to the colored integument of 

 the seed, which, as in the case of garden 

 leaves, may be white, red, yellow, blue, black, 

 or of mixed colors, but to the kernel, or 

 meat. There are a very few instances only 

 where the green color has impressed, some- 

 what, that characteristic upon the seed, as 

 in peas, nasturtiums, and maples, which pre- 

 sent a pale-green color in the pod or shell. 

 In some instances these cotyledons appear 

 above the surface of the ground, changing 

 from white to green ; while in others they 

 remain below." We learn from this study 

 of color, therefore, the author adds, " that 

 white is the primary color of root, stem, and 

 flower, and the foundation of all color." 



A New Electric Light. A vast improve- 

 ment in artificial illumination is promised in 

 the light which Mr. Tesla, " the able lieuten- 

 ant of Mr. Edison," has been exhibiting in 

 London. An experiment performed by him 

 before the Royal Institution consists, accord" 

 ing to the Spectator's account, in joining two 

 sheets of tin- foil, one over the lecturer's head, 

 the other on the table, to the poles of the 

 generator. The space between these two 

 sheets immediately became electrified, and a 

 long vacuum-tube waved about in it, without 

 attachment to any conductor, glowed in the 

 darkness like a flaming sword. The experi- 

 ment was intended to illustrate the possibili- 

 ty of rendering an entire room so electric, 

 by plates in the ceiling or under the floor, 

 that vacuum-bulbs placed anywhere within it 



