Institute of France. 23 1 



M. de Humboldt has given the truly wonderful history of the 

 volcano of Jorullo, whidi opened in 1759^ at Mexico, on a well 

 cultivated plain,^through which two rivers ran, and where no sub- 

 terraneous noise had been heard within the memory of man. 

 The catastrophe was announced some months before by rever- 

 berations which lasted fifteen or twenty days. Flames and 

 showers of ashes determined the inhabitants to fly: the surface 

 of the ground rose and fell like waves, and a multitude of small 

 cones issued, from six to nine feet high, and which still exist. 

 At length there arose a series of six hillocks, the principal of 

 which has still an inflamed crater, and is not less than 1600 

 feet high. Every morning the smoke rises from small cones 

 and crevices ; and the water of both rivers is hot, and impreg- 

 nated with sulphuretted hydrogen. This volcano, like several 

 others of the w&w world, is upwards of 40 leagues from the sea ; 

 whereas on the old continent we know of none fiirther re- 

 moved than twelve leagues. 



Botanists are not yet agreed as to the fructification of the 

 mosses. Linnceus, who established his system according to the 

 several organs, unable to discover them in the mosses, mush- 

 rooms, lichens, &c. ranged all these plants in a single class, which 

 he called cryplogfunia, or secret marriages. The mosses flourish 

 in winter ; on a very delicate pedicle rises a small urn, at first 

 covered vvith a conical cap closed by an operculum ; the cap 

 falls, the operculum is detached, and the urn is found full of 

 a green powder which Hedwig considers as the seed. M. de 

 Beauvoir has made some new observations, which induce him to 

 believe tliat the powder or dust in the urns is a true pollen or 

 fecundating powder, like that of the stamina of the greater part 

 of plants, and according to him, the seed is contained in a small 

 column which forms the axis of the urn. Hence the mosses, 

 like the greater number of other vegetables, are hermaphrodites. 



M. Lamouroux, of Caen, has published several memoirs on 

 marine plants, considered with respect to their use for the 

 nourishment of men and animals, in political and domestic 

 oeconomy, in the arts and comforts of life. It is surprising how 

 many usefid or agreeable articles different nations have derived 

 from vegetables so little distinguished ; some are directly eaten, 

 or converted into a savoury and nourishing jelly ; others furnish 

 an essential support to animals in the frozen regions of the 

 North, and all of them yield soda or manure. A few yield sugar, 

 and others colouring matter for the dye-house ; several of them 

 are made into mats, vessels for drinking, and even musical in- 

 struments : that called moss of Corsica is a valuable remedy. 



M. Desvaux has distinguished forty-four varieties in the com- 

 mon species of the banyan tree; he has also collected 172 va- 



P 4 rieties 



