Natural History in Foreign Countries. 485 



Cerinthe must be either the 5'aturfeja TTif rabra, or &. capitita. 4. The Cu- 

 cumis of the line 



" Cresceret in ventrem/' &c. 



is not the common cucumber, but the Cucumis Ch^te of Linnasiis, a plant 

 originally brought from Egypt, by the conquerors of the world. As to the 

 Cucumis caeruleus of Virgil, Sig. Tenore thinks it must be the Melone vev 

 nico of the Italians. 5. The JB'sculus is, without doubt, the Quercus i26bur 

 var. latifolia, and not the Qu^rcus ^'sculus, of which the existence in the 

 Flora of Virgil is doubtful. 6. The Hider-a. 4lba is not the Antirrhinum 

 Asarina, a common plant in the South of France, but which is not found in 

 the Neapolitan territory. It must be that variety of H4dera called by Pliny 

 Chrysocarpum. 7. The /Zyacinthus is not the Milium Mdrtagon. It accords 

 better with Gladiolus byzantlnus. 8. The Ole^ter is not the jEleagnus an- 

 gustifolia, or Bohemian olive, which never grew spontaneously in Italy, but 

 the wild olive at present known all over the south of Italy by the name of 

 Olivastro. 9. The Cerea prima belong to the variety named by the Italians 

 Scaldatelle. 10. The J?oseta is the cultivated rose. 11. The Fiburnum is 

 not the Lantana, but the riburnum Tinus. {Bulletin des Sciences.) 



Flora Cldssica. — Dr. J. Billerbeck is publishing, under this title, descrip- 

 tions of all the plants mentioned in classic authors, with the original pas- 

 Bages in which they are mentioned. {Announc Sclent, de Gotting,, p. 479.) 



DENMARK. 



Erratic Boulders' and Blocks. — The huge blocks of granite and other 

 primary rocks, which are found scattered over plains and ravines at a great 

 distance from any rocks of the same species, whence they could have been 

 detached, have long been a subject of interesting study and speculation to 

 geologists ; and numerous facts connected with their phenomena may be 

 found in the papers of De Luc, Saussure, Von Buch, Hausmann, and Sedge- 

 wick, of which a brief summary, along with some original facts, may be found 

 in the Conversations on Geology, p. 257. To these facts we have to add an ex« 

 cellent paper, by M. Brongniart, in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles for 

 May, on the rock blocks of Sweden. The author agrees with Hausmann and 

 Von Buch, in tracing the erratic blocks which are scattered over the plains of 

 Seeland, Holstein, and the southern shores of the Baltic, to the table lands 

 (plateaux) of Scandinavia. Their size is frequently enormous, and they abound 

 in the sandy plains of Holstein, still more in that of Seeland, and in the vici- 

 nity of Copenhagen, even to Elsineur. They furnish, indeed, the only building 

 stones in those districts. It v/as at first supposed that they must have come 

 from the Hartz mountains, the nearest district of granite in situ, but more; 

 minute inspection proved their identity with the rocks of Sweden, particu- 

 larly in the minerals contained in them such as wernerite, and in the cal- 

 careous blocks, trilobites, and orthoceratites, as M. Brongniart proved. The 

 greatest difficulty of explaining the transit of these blocks is the Sound, 

 which, though narrow, is very deep ; and it does not appear in what man- 

 ner they could have cleared it, as they continue to be found in Scania the 

 same as in Seeland. A similar difficulty is presented by the deep valley of 

 the Aar, with respect to the blocks of Mount Jura. They are so abundant 

 in some places, as to form a sort of hill, which the Swedes call ose, or sand-' 

 osar, according to the predominance of blocks or of sand. These M. Bron- 

 gniart found more particularly in Scania, Smoland, Sundermania, and Up- 

 land. They are seldom high, and usually long and narrow in form, being 

 rather larger, and more elevated at one extremity than another, and some- 

 times interrupted towards the middle with a tranverse ravine. They main- 

 tain a constant direction from N.N.E. to S.S.W., extending to considerable 

 distances, and rery nearly in parallel lines. M. Brongniart aptly compares 



