REMARKS ON A SUPPOSED MANNA. 



313 



garden, having cut out all the roots, that 

 had fibres, they being entirely dead. One 

 of my men said I might as well plant my 

 walking stick. Sixteen of these are now 

 flourishing trees, well grown and well root- 

 ed, new roots being induced by means of 

 washing the upper part of the tree. 



S. G. Perkins. 



Rbmarks. — The foregoing will please such 

 of our readers as like plain, sensible advice, 

 from a thoroughly practical man. We have 

 ourselves seen with great surprise and sat- 

 isfaction the trees referred to as having been 

 so successfully transplanted b^'- Mr, Pbr- 



KiNS, under what were the most unfavora- 

 ble circumstances. The great advantage 

 of the mode he practices, of loateriiig the 

 bark, and not watering the roots of a tree, 

 in a half dormant state, our correspondent 

 thoroughly convinced us of in his own gar- 

 den. Our readers are solicited to put in 

 practice the invaluable advice he gives 

 them. There is no doubt, that half the 

 trees that die annually from the ignorance 

 of transplanters, perish from, a mistaken 

 notion of deluging their roots with water 

 daily, when their fibres are so feeble as to 

 dread it as much as a patient afflicted with 

 hydrophobia. — Ed. 



Remarks on a Supposed Heavenly Manna. 



TRANSLATED FROM THE REVUE HORTICOLE, BV C. E. D 



At one of the recent sittings of the Acade- 

 my of Sciences, M. Tizenhauz announced 

 that he had observed, on the third of last 

 April, in the district of Jenischehir, govern- 

 ment of Wilna, and on his own grounds, a 

 species of rain of Manna, of a greyish- 

 white in color, rather hard, irregular in form, 

 inodorous and insipid, in a layer of three or 

 four inches in thickness. This phenomenon 

 is by no means new. It is produced by a 

 lichen, Lecanora esculenta, often carried to 

 a great distance by the wind during storms. 

 It was observed by Pallas,* towards the 

 close of the last century, in the mountainous, 

 arid, and calcareous portions of the great 

 desert of Tartary. M. Eversmann t collect- 

 ed it in the Steppe of the Kirghiz, to the 

 north of the Caspian Sea, where it is called 

 Semljenoichhb. M. Ledebour has observed 

 it in the same countries, but chiefly towards 



* Pallas, Voyage, Vol. III., p. 760. 

 t Acad. mt. Cur. Vol. XV. p. a50. 



40 



those which border on Altai. Parrot and 

 Aucher-Eloi * have collected it in Persia. 

 It has been brought lately from Constanti- 

 nople by an architect by the name of Bil- 

 ezikdji, who had observed it in Anatolia in 

 1845. Dr. Leveille t recognised and ga- 

 thered it in Crimea. Recently Dr. Guyon 

 identified it in Algeria; and if carefully 

 sought for, it will probably be found in the 

 south of Europe — in Spain. 



Those travellers who have seen this lichen 

 in its proper sites, have never found any 

 particle of it attached to any support what- 

 ever; it is quite detached, and rolls on the 

 the soil. It is found, says M. Leveille, in 

 irregular-shaped bodies, varying in size, 

 from that of a pin's head to a pea or small 

 nut. Pa-srot, Eversbiann, and Auciier- 

 Eloi, explain its appearance by its being 

 detached by waterspouts, or from the sur- 



* Aucher-Loi. Rekit.d'im Vo;/. en Orient., Vol. II., p. 399 

 t Vni/ai;e du Comte Aiiat. de DemidofT, Vol. II. p. 139. 



