324 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERT. 



tions which it contains. These baths are 4,426 feet above the 

 level of the sea. 



Foitnd in those sulphur spring;s, which have a temperature of 

 about 50° C, the muffa first appears as tender, minute fikiments, 

 soft and floating, of a greenish-white color, surrounded by a muci- 

 laginous milky-white substance imbued with a sulphurous deposit. 

 Of little consistency in its early state, it soon becomes more sub- 

 stantial, changing in color to violet, then light yellow, and finally 

 to a pale green. When mature it resembles a gelatinous lard, 

 carpeting the rock down which the water flows. 



The vegetable above referred to was considered by Allioni to be 

 Ulca lahyrinthiformis (Linnasus). In 1837 Fontan detected a dis- 

 tinct organization, describing it as composed of white filaments 

 from one four-hundredth to one two-hundredth of a millimetre in 

 diameter; tubular, cylindrical, simple, devoid of septa, containing 

 small semi-opaque globules, collocated when young, and separated 

 toward the the end of the tubes in mature individuals. To this 

 plant he gave the name Sulphiiraria, it not having been found in 

 any except sulphur springs. 



Delponte, of the Botanic Garden at Turin, after a careful micro- 

 scopic examination, places it in the genus Leptotlirix (Kutzing), 

 near to L. compada and L. lamellosa, naming it after the place of 

 its nativity, Valderia. 



A parasitic alga accompanies the above, growing upon it, and 

 an Oscillatoria sometimes covers the upper surface, where the wa- 

 ter has not more than 35° of temperature. A Conferva also occurs. 



The microscope reveals curious spontaneous movements in the 

 mufta; these are the work of numerous minute animals, which 

 live and multiply at a temperature of 40°. Prof. Defilippi con- 

 siders them to be coleopterous insects, of the genera Cryptophagus 

 and Comurus, with others which he could not determine. 



The residuum after burning dried mufi'a was 28.055 per cent. 

 Of this, 10.924 were mineral substances belonging to the vegeta- 

 ble organization, — that is, true cinders; and 17.134 sand mixed 

 with the vegetable, from which it had been found difiicult to sep- 

 arate it. One hundred parts of pure cinder contained : Oxide of 

 potassium, 15.271; oxide of sodium, 11,637; oxide of calcium, 

 7.938; oxide of magnesia, 1.915; oxide of alumina, 9.833; oxide 

 of iron and manganese, 24.162; chlorine, 2.445; sulphuric acid, 

 9.232; phosphoric acid, 4.481 ; silicious acid, 13.115. 



SPECIES AMONG DIATOMS. 



Mr. A. M. Edwards announced to the Lvceum of Natural His- 

 tory of New York, in April, 1868, two discoveries he had made in 

 vegetable physiology, which he considered of importance in their 

 bearing upon the subject of the origin of species, and desired to 

 place them on record so as to make them public at as early a date 

 as possible. In examining, by means of the microscope, a gath- 

 ering of fresh-water plants from a pond in New Jersey, made in 

 last November, he had found two forms of minute organisms be- 



