OF ARTS AND SCIENCES. 21 



object. After many experiments, Messrs. J. H. Cutting, Pho- 

 tographer, and L. H. Bradford, Lithographer, have succeeded 

 in so preparing the stone that the figure thrown upon it from 

 the camera is fixed permanently there, and can be printed 

 from as an ordinary drawing. The discovery promises to be 

 of very great value in the arts. 



Professor A. Gray, referring to the popular opinion that 

 squashes are spoiled by pumpkins, and melons by cucumbers 

 or squashes, &c., when grown near each other, in consequence, 

 as was thought, of cross-fertilization, remarked that it was 

 a question whether the deterioration or alteration showed 

 itself in the fruit of the season, that is, in the altered char- 

 acter of the ovary which had been acted upon by alien pollen, 

 or only in the next generation, i. e. in the cross-bred fruit. The 

 former was the popular idea, or at least the more common 

 one ; but if it was a case of cross-breeding, the alteration 

 would naturally be looked for only in the progeny. As throw- 

 ing some light upon this question, he gave an account of 

 Naudin's recent investigations upon the cultivated Cucurbi- 

 tacecB, showing that the species of Cucurbita (which, as to 

 those in ordinary cultivation, Naudin had reduced to three 

 or four) refuse to hybridize ; but that the application of the 

 pollen of one species to the stigma of another, from which 

 its own pollen is excluded, often causes the fruit to set and 

 grow to its full size, although no embryos are formed in the 

 seeds. Thus it seemed probable that alien pollen really acted 

 upon the ovary in the cases referred to, and that the popular 

 belief was correct. In confirmation of this view. Professor 

 Gray exhibited several ears of Indian corn, — such as are 

 familiar in the country, — in which two, and even three or 

 four, sorts of grains (such as sweet-corn, yellow and white 

 corn, &c.) occurred intermixed upon the same ear. This ap- 

 peared to demonstrate an immediate action of the pollen upon 

 the ovary, altering the character of the coat and of the albu- 

 men of the grain. This might, or might not, be accompanied 

 by cross-fertilization of the embryo, — a point which it would 



