90 Roj/al Academy of Sciences of Berlin. 



sweet during long voyage?, by charring the inside of the 

 casks. Captain Krusenstern has honourably acknowledged 

 how much navigation is indebted to the philo.soi)her, who is 

 a subject of a country at war with his o\An. 



The sciences which tend to unveil to us the intimate 

 nature of natural beings, have made still further advances. 



A particular point in the anatomy of plants, the manner 

 in which the seeds are fecundated, has been tiie object of 

 the researches of M. Turpin. 



This botanist thinks that the umbilical, or the part by 

 which the grains adhered to the fruit, besides the passage 

 which transmits the vessels which come from the trunk and 

 which nourish the grain, also gives passage to other channels 

 which descend from the pistil, shoot out opposite the small 

 root of the cmbrion, and carry to it the fecundating prin- 

 ciple bv the stigma of the powder of the stamina. There is 

 seen on all the grains a small aperture called mijcropila by 

 M. Turpin, and to which he attributes this function. 



[To be continued.] 

 EOrAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF BERLIN. 



At the anniversary of the above Academy on the 7th of 

 August last, the following distinguished foreigners were pro- 

 claimed members of the Institution : M. Cuvier, member 

 of the French Institute ; Sir Joseph Banks, president of 

 the Roval Society of London ; M. Goedic, privy counsellor 

 to the duke of Weimar, and a\ithor of fVerter ; M. Zoega, 

 asrent for the king of Denmark at Rome, and author of se- 

 veral excellent works upon anliipiities^ and professor Hiu- 

 deberg, ofLeipsig. 



The Acadcmv at the same meeting awarded prizes to two 

 memoirs upon the structure and functions of the lungs ; the 

 one bv M. Rei-iseissen, a physician of Strasbourg ; and the 

 other bv jM. Soemmering;, privy counsellor to tlie king of 

 Eavaria. Tlic class of mathematics of the Academy declarec' 

 that thev had received nothing satisfactory upon the problem 

 relative to the variations in the obliquity of the ecliptic. The 

 time has been therefore enlarged for giving "in the memoirs 

 oa the subj'jct, to two years longer. The Academy has 



proposed 



