•EXTRACTS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS. 321 



BOTANY. 



5. — Organography of the Cistacece. — A learned and able paper on this 

 order of plants, recently published by M. Edouard Spach, commences in the 

 following words : — 



A new treatise on a group composed chiefly of species indigenous to France, 

 will doubtless appear superfluous to many ; nevertheless, judging even by the 

 most recent works, the pretended characters of the Cistacece depend only on ex- 

 tremely vague and superficial notions. I flatter myself I have supplied this gap 

 by a comparative examination of even the most minute details of nearly all the 

 known Cistacece, as well as of many new species — a method, indeed, little 

 expeditious, but replete with means for proving the worthlessness of theoretical 

 classifications, founded on partial observations. 



The order Cistacece consists, according to the majority of botanists of the pre- 

 sent day, of the genera Cistus, Helianthemum, Hudsonia and Lechea. It is 

 to the species comprised in these four genera that the researches the results of 

 which I am about to lay before the reader almost exclusively relate. Altoge- 

 ther I have reason to believe, that a revision of several of the neighbouring orders, 

 especially Portulacece, Bixinacece, Tiliacece, and Flacourtiacece, would probably 

 enrich the first with a number of plants now erroneously classed among the 

 others. 



I shall not dwell at all on the duration, bearing, leaves, and inflorescence of 

 the Cistacece, having but little to add to what is already known on this subject. 



The vegetation of the Cisti with deciduous leaves, offers a peculiarity which I 

 cannot pass over in silence. In these plants the leaves developed on the young 

 shoots, during the early months of fine weather, generally fall in the course of 

 the summer, when new branches proceed from their axillae. The leaves which 

 grow on these stalks are almost invariably of a very different shape from those 

 of the primary shoots, and entirely alter the appearance of the plant. The in- 

 florescence varies greatly in many species ; so that characters drawn from the 

 number and disposition of the flowers, would in many cases be wholly worth- 

 less. — Annales des Sciences Naturelles. 



GEOLOGY. 



6. — On the Fossil Bones found near the Jamna, in India. — We have 

 already frequently laid before our readers the active researches which the dis- 

 covery of important fossils has caused in many places in the immense English 

 empire in the Indies. We shall report the new facts which transpire on this 

 subject, and which are interesting both to the geologist and the zoologist. 



The works undertaken to facilitate the navigation of the Jamna, have led to the 

 discovery of numbers of fossil bones, in different states of transformation. Some 



