418 Progress of Natural History ^ 



M. Moreau de Jonnes has communicated an extensive me- 

 moir on maize. He first contradicts the opinion, that it was 

 known to the inhabitants of the old world before the discovery 

 of the new, over the whole of which it is now spread, and 

 known under various names. M. Moreau's researches have 

 been profound, and he proves that human agency introduced 

 it into the ancient continent, and that, by the same means, 

 rice, millet, and wheat have been carried to the Americans. 



M. Delille has described the structure of the flower and 

 fruit of the Thelygonum Cynocrambe, belonging to the family 

 of Chenopodiaceae, observed by him in the neighbourhood of 

 Montpelier, and hitherto unknown to botanists. When grown 

 in a damp soil, the fruit loses its pulp and epidermis, and is 

 covered with a white dust, which looks very much like amianth, 

 and which resists decomposition much longer than any vege- 

 table substance. This dust consists of a prodigious number 

 of needle-shaped crystals, pointed at each end, thicker in the 

 middle, and having a flat facet on each side, which is only to 

 be seen with a microscope. These crystals, larger than those 

 of most other vegetables, are agglomerated in bundles, so as 

 to make the surface of the fruit appear wrinkled. 



The great descriptive works on botany are continued with- 

 out intermission. M. Decandolle has published a monograph 

 on Crassulaceae ; M. Auguste St. Hilaire one on i^olygalae ; 

 M. Kunth announces a work on grasses, which will doubtless 

 be full of the most important observations. This learned bo- 

 tanist has also published a special description of the ^alsamina 

 of our gardens. M, Cambessedes has presented a memoir to 

 the Academy, containing numerous details concerning the 

 Ternstrom/ac^<^ and Guttiferae, in which two families he pro- 

 poses several new genera, and rejects others as not belonging 

 to them. M. Bory St. Vincent has minutely described the 

 Agamia and Cryptogamia collected by the ship Coquille, in 

 her voyage round the world. M. Guillemin has given a 

 collection of drawings of rare plants in Australia. M. Des- 

 courtils continues his medical Flora of the West Indies, and 

 has published a familiar treatise on edible and poisonous 

 mushrooms. 



In treating of Anatomy and Animal Physiology, Baron 

 Cuvier tells us, that M. Magendie has collected into one 

 work, all his scattered observations on the brain and the 

 liquid which bathes it, and the medulla spinalis. According to 

 M. Magendie, adult women have more of this fluid than men ; 

 but it abounds most in the skull of old people, whose brain is 

 diminished by age. Idiots are said to have even a larger pro- 

 portion of it. It forms a layer all round the brain, one or two 



