THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 215 



gaged in superintending tlie passage of the work through the press. It 

 is a pleasant circumstance that in this instance, as well as in many 

 others, the organization of the Institution enables it to co-operate with 

 other institutions, and to assist them in their labors of promoting 

 knowledge. 



This memoir, which is now in the press, was referred for critical 

 examination to Professor Felton, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and t<> 

 Professor Turner, of New York. The latter has furnished us with a 

 report on the importance of collecting information relative to the differ- 

 ent dialects now in use among the Indians. 



7. Dr. Joseph Leidy, of Philadelphia, has prepared a memoir for the 

 Institution, accompanied by numerous illustrations, entitled " A Flora 

 and Fauna within living Animals." It is an elaborate history of a most 

 remarkable series of plants, in many cases accompanied by parasitic 

 animals, found growing, as an ordinary or natural condition, within the 

 interior of the bodies of living animals. In some of the latter, it is stated, 

 growing plants are never absent; and in a species of insects, viz : Pajm- 

 lus Cornutus, a forest of vegetation is always tbund covering the inner 

 surface of the veniriculus or second stomach. 



The plants of course are Cryptogamic, and are algoid in their char- 

 acter. fSome are as long as half an inch, but usually they are very 

 much smaller. They grow attaclied to the mucous membrane of the 

 cavities in which they are fuund, and occasionally from the exterior 

 covering of worms infesting the same cavities. Several genera and 

 species of these plants are characterized under the names of Eutero- 

 bryus elcgam, E, ottennatus, Arthromihts cristatus, Clado^jhyfian comatum. 

 and Corynoclodus radio t us. 



The mode of growth and reproduction ot" several of the species has 

 been carefully traced and fully illustrated by iigure-s. 



The researches are prefaced by some observations on the laws ot 

 parasitic life in general, wliich are presented in a highly philosophical 

 manner, and entirely free from hypothesis — the whole forming one of 

 the most remarkable papers on physiofog}" which has ever been pro- 

 duced by our countrymen. 



8. Lieatenant Charles Henry Davis, United States navy, Superinten- 

 dent of the American Nautical Almanac, has presented a memoir on 

 the dynamic effects of the tides. 



This memoir is a continuation of one presented by the author to the 

 American Academy a few years ago, and is of much interest, not only 

 in a scientitic point of view, as connected with important geological 

 changes, but also on account of its practical bearings upon the trans- 

 formations which are constantly going on at the entrance of rivers, 

 channels, and in the formation of headlands and promontories. Were 

 our globe a perfect spheroid of revolution, surrounded by water of uni- 

 form depth, the tides of the ocean would consist of nearly perpendicu- 

 lar undulations of the particles of the liquid, and a mere translation ot 

 form, without a transference of matter. But, in the case of a globe ot 

 irregular surface, covered with water of varying depth, the oscillations 

 of the ocean must constantly produce currents in definite directions, 

 which tend continually to change the position of the moveable materials 

 which are found at the bottom of the sea, particularly as we approach 



