BIOLOGY. 299 



*' Second. That the essential types of the old floras, of the cre- 

 taceous and tertiaiy formations, have passed into our present 

 vegetation, or are preserved to our time. The cretacean of Amer- 

 ica, for example, has already the magnolias, which we find still 

 more abundant in our tertiary. This last formation has furnished 

 a number of species of the genus Magnolia, nearly identical with 

 that now existing in the United States, while the genus is totally 

 absent in the corresponding floras of Europe. More than this, 

 we find in our tertiary the same predominating types marked on 

 both sides of the Rocky Mountains. On the Atlantic slope, leaves 

 of magnolias, of oaks, of elms, of maples and poplars, and not a 

 trace of coniferous trees; while in California and Vancouver's 

 Island the redwoods or Sequoia abound in the cretacean and ter- 

 tiary, as now they still form the predominant vegetation of the 

 country." 



BIOLOGICAL SUMMARY. 



Identity of Visual Impressions in the Animal Kingdom.— 

 According to the experiments of M.Bert, as reported to the 

 French Academy by Milne Edwards, performed on the Daphniay 

 a minute crustacean inhabiting fresh water, all animals see the 

 so-called luminous rays of the spectrum for the same range and 

 with the same relative intensity as man does, and none other. If 

 we consider the great difference between the structure of the hu- 

 man eye and that of the single composite unfacetted eye of the 

 Daphnia, and the distance which separates these zoological types, 

 we are authorized, until the contrary be proved, to assume that 

 the animals between this crustacean and man, and perhaps those 

 below the former, see the same ravs and with the same relative 

 intensity. — Comptes RenduSy Aug. 2, 1869. 



Transfusion of Blood. — The chief causes of the discredit into 

 which this operation has fallen, are the employment of fibrinized 

 blood, inability to measure the quantity used, and the imperfec- 

 tion of the instruments. Fibrinized blood coagulates in the tubes 

 of the apparatus ; hence either the transfusion becomes impossi- 

 ble, or there is danger of introducing clots, which may cause 

 death, immediate by obstruction of the pulmonary artery, or 

 delayed if the clots arrive at a more distant part of the circula- 

 tion. The fibrine is not an essential part of the blood, and may be 

 removed without inconvenience ; in fact, the process of removing 

 the fibrine by whipping saturates it with oxygen and frees it from 

 carbonic acid. If too much blood, or too much at a time, be used, 

 the heart is overburdened, and paralysis of the organ or danger- 

 ous congestions may ensue. An apparatus for performing this 

 operation with success is described in " Comptes Kendus" for 

 October 4, 1809. 



Function of the Marrow of the Bones. — According to M, Neumann 

 (•'Comptes llendus,"]\Iay 10, 1869), this is an important organ in 

 the formation of the l)lood, continually developing new red blood- 

 cells by the transformation of colorless cells resembling the cor- 

 puscles of the lymph. 



