Jbund in the Waters of Abano. 263 



This plant is found among the springs of Abano, in places 

 where the temperature varies from 133° to 145° Fahr. In spring 

 and the beginning of summer, it forms a floating membrane, of 

 a beautiful green colour. It has somewhat the appearance of 

 jelly, slips along the fingers, and is covered with a great number 

 of very small vesicles, filled with some gas or air. At a later 

 period, it is covered with a gritty powder, and sinks into the 

 water ; there then rises from these vesicles projections in the 

 form of hollow quills, which rise as high as from two to four 

 inches. Their heads are roundish, and surrounded with a 

 crown of small appendices. In autumn, or at the commencement 

 of winter, these small heads break open, the gas which filled 

 them escapes, and the whole mass sinks down. These projec- 

 tions finally are crusted over with a gritty powder, assume a 

 reddish colour, and it is only in some places that the green co- 

 lour remaining indicates their vegetable origin. 



The author has not been able to discover the organs of repro- 

 duction. After macerating the plant for a long time in water 

 with muriatic acid, he got rid of the stony deposit ; and M. Link 

 could distinguish, with a magnifier of four hundred powers, 

 very delicate and confused filaments, at the edges of which were 

 small canals, containing a red juice. Upon analysis, this plant 

 afforded sulphuric, silicic, and carbonic acids, chlorine, iodine, 

 sulphur, ammonia, .soda, lime, magnesia, alumina, and iron. 



On the Animals designated in the Scriptures hy the Names of 

 Leviathan and Behemoth. (Communicated by the Author.) 



While every sentence in the writings of the Greeks and Ro- 

 mans, having any reference to any branch of science, has been 

 illustrated with great learning and profound research, men of 

 science do not appear to have turned their attention, with that 

 interest which the subject might well inspire, to the illustration 

 of similar passages in the original and authentic archives of the 

 human race, contained in the writings of the Hebrews. Several 

 causes may be assigned for this, among which, no doubt, the' 

 circumstance is to be accounted the chief, that the language of 

 the original docs not form a common subject of study at our 



