ee 
- Miscellaniess * 377 
MISCELLANIES. 
Genes AND DOMESTIC.) 
= : Extracts and translation by Prof. Griscom, 
NATURAL aa iene sy 
at ” The Planera, formerly called the Siberian Elm,i isa tree which 
_ grows on the borders of the Caspian and of, the Black Sea. - Ac- 
cording to an account given of it.to the French Academy on» the 
Bist of January, last, by Desfontaines and Mirbel, it graws to the . 
height of - twenty-five or thirty metres, with a straight and well pro- 
portioned trunk, free from branches, to the height of eight or nine 
‘Metres, and of three or four metres*or more-in circumference. Its 
head is large, and tufted, and the branches rise almost perpendicu~ 
larly. ‘The sap of the Planera is white, but acquires a red color to- 
ward the heart. | It is heavier and stronger than the elm or chesnut, 
and of so close a texture as to receive a beautiful polish. ‘The wood 
is so hard that it is difficult to drive a nail into it. It has the supple- 
_ Ness and elasticity of oak, and is preferred to that wood for plaoks 
and carpentry in Georgia. . It is not subject to worms, and is ve 
durable in water and. in the ground. Being larger than the forest 
~ 
trees of France, it offers many advantages, and is deemed well wor- 
thy of cultivation. fas eee is never’ injured by thn OE 
‘Rev. Ency. Jan. 1 
2. Change of climate ; dioriadion of cnpecatitrs on the surface 
of the earth.—It is not-only from analogy, observes Mr, Lyell in his 
new work on geology, that we must infer a diminution of tempera- 
ture in the climate of Europe; there are proofs of this doctrine in 
‘the only countries hitherto studied by geologists, in which we might 
expect to find direct proofs. It is not in England, or in the north of 
-France, but on the borders of the Mediterranean, from the south of 
Spain to Calabria, and in the islands of the same sea, that we must 
look for conclusive demonstrations of this fact. For it is not only in| 
S whose fossil shells are like the shells of living species, that a 
theory of climate ean be subjected to a kind of experimentum crucis. 
In Sicily, at Ischia and in Calabria, where fossil shells of the most 
recent beds belong almost entirely to kinds which are known te be 
