Professor Jacob Berzelius on Meteoric Stones. 7 



tides of metallic iron eould be detected, with the assistance of a 

 microscrope. Water removed the sulphate of magnesia, toge- 

 ther with a small quantity of sulphate of nickel, but nothing 

 organic, and also nothing which could be extracted by alkalies. 

 By dry distillation I obtained carbonic acid gas, water, and a 

 blackish-grey sublimate ; but no empyreumatic oil, no carbu- 

 reted hydrogen gas in a word, the substance containing car- 

 bon was not of the same nature as the humus in the earth of 

 our planet. The residue was carbonised and black. When 

 heated in oxygen the sublimate afforded no trace of carbonic 

 acid or water, and was converted into a white uncrystalline vola- 

 tile substance, soluble in water. The water was not rendered 

 acid by it, nor was a precipitate formed in the solution by the 

 addition of nitrate of silver. What this substance is, I know 

 not ; to me it is entirely new. Can it be an elementary body 

 which originally does not belong to our earth ? It would be 

 premature to answer this question in the affirmative. 



On the Relations of Colour and [Smell in the more important 

 Families of the Vegetable Kingdom.* 



G. SCHUBLEE and F. J. KOHLEE have lately published (in an 

 inaugural dissertation by the latter, Tubingen, 1831, 8vo) the 

 results of some very interesting investigations on the relations of 

 colour and smell in the more important families of the vegetable 

 kingdom, and have thrown much light on this hitherto little 

 cultivated field. 



They examined the relations of the flowers of 4200 plants be- 

 longing to twenty-seven different families, of which latter twenty 

 were dicotyledonous, and seven monocotyledonous. In twenty- 

 one of these families the whole genera and species are considered, 

 in so far as particular information could be obtained ; and in six 

 the more important genera were submitted to a careful examina- 

 tion and calculation. 



Among the monocotyledons the following natural families 



* Extracted from a work entitled, '< Ueber das Licht Vorzugsweise liber 

 die Chemischen und Phjsiologischen Wirkungen desselben," by Dr Land- 

 grebe of Marburg. 



