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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



strum, the Anemone stdfurca and the Ra- 

 nunculus fflacialis are taken from the Alps 

 by ten thousand at a time ; and a lot of four 

 thousand edelweiss was recently shipped 

 to America. If the plants are not taken up 

 with proper care, eighty out of a hundred 

 of them will probably perish, and fifty 

 more will be trampled upon or mutilated in 

 getting the hundred. The Swiss Associa- 

 tion does not object to the collecting of the 

 plants ; it only wants them collected in such 

 a manner that no danger shall be incurred 

 of destroying or diminishing the species. 

 It seeks to point out how this may be done, 

 by selecting the season when removal will 

 involve no danger to the life and vigor of 

 the plant, and especially by insisting upon 

 a more general adoption of cultivation and 

 reproduction by seed. It has established a 

 garden of acclimatation near Geneva, where 

 the seeds of mountain-plants are raised to 

 be sold at a moderate price, from which it 

 has already obtained good results ; for many 

 persons who used to plunder the mountains 

 now go to it for seeds. It does not confine 

 its attention to the plants of its own coun- 

 try, but keeps a good lookout also for the 

 well-being of rare species in other lands ; 

 and has agents in Mexico and Brazil to in- 

 tercede with the authorities for the institu- 

 tion of measures to secure the preservation 

 of the cactuses of the former country and 

 the orchids of the latter. 



Glacial Action in East Africa.— Mr. II. 

 E. O'Neill, British consul at Mozambique, 

 in a description of Eastern Africa, between 

 the Zambesi and Rovuma Rivers, speaks of 

 the frequency with which one encounters evi- 

 dence of glacial action as a very interesting 

 point to the traveler in that country. "I 

 have met with it," he says, " upon the Na- 

 muli range, in the Inagu Bills, and again 

 much nearer the coast, among a small block 

 of hills called the Tugni. You see it every- 

 where in the smooth, dome-shaped tops and 

 polished precipitous sides of the hills of the 

 country, but the clearest evidence is afford- 

 ed by the more striking spectacle of huge 

 detached blocks lying across the summits of 

 peaks — blocks many tons in weight, which 

 could never have been carried there by any 

 other known physical agency than that of 



Onr Oldest Herbaria. — President Will- 

 iam Carruthers, in the Biological Section of 

 the British Association, spoke of the value 

 of herbaria, or collections of dried specimens 

 of plants, for supplying the most certain 

 materials for the minute comparison at 

 any future time of the then existing vege- 

 tation with that of our own day. We have 

 now collections in England about two hun- 

 dred years old that have been used for 

 that purpose. Dr. Schweinf urth has obtained 

 specimens, which were originally deposited 

 in the form of offerings, from Egyptian 

 tombs, four thousand years old, which are 

 as satisfactory for the purposes of science 

 as any collected at the present day, and 

 which consequently supply means for the 

 closest examination and comparison with 

 their living representatives. The colors of 

 the flowers are still present, even the most 

 evanescent. The chlorophyl remains in the 

 leaves, and the sugar in the pulp of the 

 raisins. Dr. Schweinfurth has determined 

 fifty-nine species, some of which are repre- 

 sented by fruits, others by flowers and 

 leaves, and the remainder by branches. 

 Mr. Carruthers also referred to the de- 

 posits discovered at Cromer, and the re- 

 mains which exist of pre-glacial flora, and 

 came to the conclusion that the various 

 physical conditions that necessarily affected 

 those species in their diffusion over such 

 large areas of the earth's surface in the 

 course of, say, two hundred and fifty thou- 

 sand years, should have led to the produc- 

 tion of many varieties, but the uniform 

 testimony of the remains of this pre-glacial 

 flora, so far as the materials admit of a 

 comparison, is that no appreciable change 

 has taken place. 



Coal-Mine Gas-Explosions and the Weath- 

 er. — Mr. II. Harries remarks, in " Iron," that 

 though a connection is believed to exist be- 

 tween fire-damp in coal-mines and atmos- 

 pheric changes, its nature is not well under- 

 stood. The rule is probably analogous to 

 that which controls weather-changes, which 

 are not indicated by definite points in the 

 barometric scale, but by differences in press- 

 tire between neighboring places. He thinks, 

 therefore, that it is desirable to ascertain 

 whether the presence of gas in mines is, like 

 the weather, distributed in areas, and wheth- 



