68 REPORT—1849. 
organized bodies at the bottom of ancient seas and lakes, so they might be applied 
artificially to deodorize and combine with the phosphates in the sewerage of Jarge 
towns. 
On an original broad Sheet of Granite, interstratified among Slates with Grit 
Beds, between Falmouth and Truro in Cornwall. By the Rev. D. Witu1aMs, 
F.G.S. 
This bed of granite is the only one of the kind ever seen by the author, who has 
traced it over a breadth of four miles by two. It varies in thickness from 4 feet 
-9-inches to 16 feet, and in dip from 15° to 40°; in some places it undulates repeatedly 
with the slates, and in one there is a small shift in the slates, whilst the granite is 
only bent. 
ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY. 
On some Changes in the Male Flowers of Forty Days’ Maize. 
By. Rosert A. C. Austen, F.R.S. 
Tue specimens I herewith send were taken from a crop of that variety of the Zea 
Mais which has recently been introduced into this country as the Forty Days’ Maize: 
the seed was said to have been raised on the slopes of the Pyrenees, at an elevation 
of 3000 to 4000 feet, and the variety was considered as more likely to succeed than 
any of those as yet cultivated in this country. 
As is well known, the Zea Mais isa moneecious grass: the male flowers are borne 
in distinct terminal panicles, which rise high and clear of the leaves; the female 
flowers are contained in lateral cobs, which consist of bracts enveloping a cone; 
these consist of several double rows (8-10) of flowers; of these the pistils project be- 
yond the bracts. Several female flowers are grouped together; one only of each 
group usually perfects its seed, but the abortive ones can be detected, and help to-ac- 
count for the number of valves which are to be found in conjunction with each seed. 
The external bracts serve to protect the whole cone of associated female flowers of 
the maize, and which are not therefore provided for by the hardening of the valves 
of the corolla, as in Phalaris, &c.; these envelopes are therefore but imperfectly repre- 
sented in the ears of maize; and it will be observed that where the seed is abortive 
they are developed more fully. 
Compared with a crop of four varieties of American maize, of which the heads of 
male flowers were all full and branched, the contrast was striking: a large proportion 
of the flowers of the forty days’ maize were single like ears of wheat; another pecu- 
liarity was, that it presented a number-of heads of naked grain; this change has been 
noticed, but instances may not have come within the observation of English botanists. 
Mr. Turpin, as quoted by Moquin-Tandon, thus describes it: ‘‘ Where the transforma- 
tion of stamens into pistils takes place, there is sometimes a single supernumerary 
ear, which is usually situated near the summit of the principal axis; sometimes 
several; in this case each branch bears its own.” This is a true description of the 
appearance which the heads commonly exhibit; it is in the lower portion of the ear 
that the grain is wanting in wheat, particularly in cold situations or in cold seasons. 
With the conversion of stamens into pistils in the terminal panicles, there is fre- 
quently a suppression of the lateral cobs. 
The moneecious grasses are mostly tropical or sub-tropical; but in the present in- 
stance we seem to have an example of a hardy variety of Zea taking the character of 
the inflorescence of the grasses of the temperate and colder zones. 
On a Series of Morphological Changes observed in Trifolium repens. 
By Roserr A, C. Austen, F.R.S. 
In a paper by Dr. Lankester to the Natural History Section of this Association 
last year, he referred to instances, he had recently observed, of proliferous clover. In 

