172 TRANSACTIONS OF THE SOCIETY OF PHYSICS AND 



tube closed with a sort of a stopper, can construct this apparatus only 

 ■while tbey are young. They give to it the color which would best cause 

 it to be confounded with the adjacent ground. M. Eouchette has given 

 a series of examples, confirming the observations of the ingenious 

 English naturalist. 



Dr. Lombard commented before the society upon the report of the 

 French commission, by Dr. Baillarger, in regard to the goitre and cre- 

 tinism. He hnds in the facts presented a verification of the theory he 

 has given of the cause of the goitre. This cause, according to his view, 

 consists in a plethora of carbon, produced by the rarity of the oxygen in 

 elevated regions. A sojourn on the shores of the sea corrects this affec- 

 tion by the greater abundance of oxygen, and by the iodine, which 

 absorbs the carbon. Other causes may, in certain elevated localities, 

 diminish the inconvenient effects of the rarity of the oxygen. M. Lom- 

 bard's theory has also found support in the facts observed by the military 

 physicians at Briangon, St. Etienne, and Lyons, and recorded in the Med- 

 ical Gazette. The soldiers were the more frequently attacked with goi- 

 tre in proportion as the locality in which they resided was elevated. 



Dr. d'Espine has given us an oral review of his thesis upon the puer- 

 peral septicemia, tending to prove experimentally that the accidents 

 of childbirth proceed from the absorption by the uteri-vaginal lesions of 

 septic substances, as in any wound whatever. 



Botany. — The duration of the vitality of the seeds thrown into the sea 

 is a question which concerns both physiology and botanical geography. 

 M. Gustave has made it the object of direct study, at the request of M. 

 lie Oandolle, and the latter communicated to the secretary the results, 

 which have since been printed in the Archives of Physical and Natural 

 Science for July, 1873. 



The progress made in the knowledge of vegetable fossils induced M. Alp. 

 de Candolle to endeavor to connect, more than had yet been done, the bo- 

 tanical geography of ancient and present times. For this end he deemed 

 it necessary to propose a classification of the vegetables, founded upon 

 their manner of comportment with regard to temperature and humidity, 

 which determines different groups, of classes, families, species, and geo- 

 graphical flora. He insists upon the persistence of physiological prop- 

 erties, and attributes it to hereditary descent. After having character- 

 ized five groups of plants, which he calls megaihermes, xerophiles, m6so- 

 thermes^ microthcrmes, and MMsfothcrmcs, he shows their present distri- 

 bution upon the terrestrial surface, and their anterior distribution, often 

 different even in the Tertiary Period, the nearest approached to ours. 

 The memoir appeared in the Archives of Physical and ^Natural Science 

 for the month of May, 1874. 



Several botanists, members of our society, have been engaged with 

 investigations in connection with the great publication of the Brazilian 

 flora. M. Marc Micheli, having completed his study of the onagrarie^s 

 of Brazil, has given us some interesting facts in regard to the organiza- 



