80 Miscellaneous. 



of an accumulation of minute foraminiferous shells. Even in the 

 nummulitic limestone, the matrix in which the Nummulites are 

 imbedded is itself composed of minute Foraminifera, and of the 

 comminuted fragments of larger ones. The remarkable discovery 

 has been recently made by Prof. Ehrenberg, that the green and 

 ferruginous sands which present themselves in various stratified 

 deposits, from the Silurian to the Tertiary epoch, but which are 

 especially abundant in the Cretaceous period, are chiefly composed 

 of casts of the interior of minute shells of Foraminifera and Mollusca, 

 the shells themselves having entirely disappeared. The material 

 of these casts, which is chiefly silex, coloured by silicate of iron, has 

 not merely filled the chambers and their communicating passages, 

 but has also penetrated, even to its minutest ramifications, that 

 system of interseptal canals, whose existence, first discovered by 

 Dr. Carpenter in Nummulites, has been detected also in many recent 

 Foraminifera allied to these in general plan of structure. And it is 

 a very interesting pendent to this discovery, that a like process has 

 been shown by Prof. Bailey to be at present going on over various 

 parts of the sea-bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf Stream ; 

 casts of Foraminifera in green saud being brought up in soundings 

 with living specimens of the same types. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 

 Obituary Notice. — Robert Brown, Esq. 



Died at his residence, 17 Dean Street, Soho Square, formerly the 

 library of Sir Joseph Banks, on the 10th of June, Robert Brown, 

 Esq., D.C.L., F.R.S., Keeper of the Botanieal Collections in the 

 British Museum, and formerly President of the Linnsean Society. 

 We translate from the * Archives de Botanique * for April 1 833, the 

 following notice of this great botanist, from the pen of M. Adrien de 

 Jussieu : — 



" The Academy of Sciences of the Institute of France reckons 

 among its members eight foreign associates. Whenever death effaces 

 one of these eight names, the name which appears most illustrious 

 in the world of science out of France is designated to replace it. To 

 read over the list of the foreign associates of the Academy from its 

 foundation, is consequently to pass in review all those men whose 

 memory is connected with the history of the great advances of the 

 human mind, — Newton, Leibnitz, Euler, Linnaeus, Haller, Volta, &c. 

 The science which we cultivate may therefore be proud of the fact 

 that, at this moment, of the eight elected from among the luminaries 

 of science, two are botanists, M. DeCandolle and Mr. Brown. 



" It was in the sitting of the 4th of March that Mr. Brown was 

 elected by the Academy. Of 47 votes he obtained 29 ; the re- 

 mainder were shared among his competitors, none of whom had more 

 than 7 votes. They were Bessel, Von Buch, Faraday, Herschel, 

 Jacobi, Meckel, Mitscherlich, CErsted, and Plana. That among so 



