Natural History. 41 \ 



9. Presenation of Seeds.— Hh.Q late Dr, Roxburgh, when in 

 India, appears to have been in the habit of putting up the various 

 seeds, which, among other things, he wished to send home to this 

 country, in an envelope of gum-arabic: they were coated with a 

 thick mucilage of gum, which hardened around them : and he was 

 informed by Sir John Pringle, the President of the Royal Society, 

 that the seeds had been received in a better state of preservation, 

 particularly the mimosas, than he had ever seen the same kinds 

 arrive from countries equally distant.— Tech. Rep. vi. 299. 



10. Jmmoriite, Sfc. containing Shells. Communicated by the Rev. 

 C. P. N. Wilton, B.A., F.C., P.S., of Blakeney, Gloucestershire.— 

 In page 188 of the last Number of the Journal of Science, Litera- 

 ture, and the Arts, a communication is made of the discovery of an 

 ammonite containing shells, on a hill near Alois. A similar cir- 

 cumstance has lately presented itself to my notice, on the western 

 shore of the Severn, in the parish of Aure, in the county of Glou- 

 cester. At a part of the shore, called the Woodend, a very great 

 variety of organic remains are found in the Blue Lias ; amongst the 

 rest was lately discovered a large fragment of an ammonite in 

 limestone, which must have been about nine inches in diameter, 

 having in its interior several other shells of serpula, spines of echi- 

 nus, ostrea,pectuncu!us, and jJCTi^acnHzVe mixed together, in the mass 

 of which the ammonite is composed. In the clialk of the upper 

 formation of the South Downs, in Sussex, in a pit on the side of 

 Ihat part of them which is called Heyshott-hill, near the town of 

 Midhurst, I have noticed a similar occurrence of the appearance of 

 shells imbedded in the interior of another, of a different species. In 

 breaking a large mass of angular Hint, the fracture passed through 

 a shell of the echinus mamillaris, the interior of which was filled 

 Avith black flint, and in the substance of the flint, which formed the 

 interior of the echinus, were imbedded three minute bivalves of the 

 species, terebratida dentata. 



11. Ficus Elastica. — M. Caventou has examined the fcvs 

 elastica analytically, with a view to detect the presence, and ascer- 

 tain the quantity, of caoutchouc in it ; but could not discover that it 

 contained any of that substance. 



12. Form of Hailstones. — Whilst ascending the Volcano of Pu- 

 race, in the Andes, M. Humboldt had occasion to observe, that 

 during a hail-storm, the hail stones, which were white, from live to 

 seven lines in diameter, and formed of layers of different translu- 

 cency, were not merely very much flattened at the poles, but were 

 so much swelled in their equatorial dimensions as to have rings of ice 

 separate from them on the slightest blow. J\l. Humboldt had twice 

 previously observed this phciiomenou in the mountains of Barcuth 

 and near Cracovia, during a journey in Poland. " May itbe admitted 

 2E2 



