Miscellaneous Intelligence. 203 



undergo the most sudden changes and bear no affinity to each other. By 

 means of these rapid changes, he has fixed certain vegetable geological 

 periods, which he has reduced to four; during each of which vegetation has 

 presented but few remarkable chang-es, but. the passages of which from one 

 to another have been strongly marked. The first comprehends transition 

 earths and coal, the second speckled sandstone, the third extends from the 

 upper part of shelly limestone to the under chalk, and the fourth corres- 

 ponds with the tertiary formations. These are separated by strata, which 

 contain few or no vegetable remains; as the red sandstone and the alpine 

 limestone, which intervene between the first and the second; the secondary 

 limestone, between the second and third; and chalk bel ween the third and 

 fourth. In the first period the ferns and larger vegetables predominate; in 

 the second is an equal number of ferns, monocotyledons, and Coniferae, but 

 of a smaller size than in the first; in the third the Cycadeae are most abun- 

 dant, and there is a dearth of dicotyledons in all three; but in the fourth is 

 a remarkable predominance of dicotyledons, and a similarity to the vegeta- 

 bles of the present day. Thus, as in the animal kingdom, an aftiinitv may 

 be traced between er.ch succession and the state of vegetation in the dif- 

 ferent zones of the present globe. The Flora of the first period approaches 

 to that of the small islands between the tropics, and far from continents ; 

 which induces the author to think, -that during- this period the temperature 

 of the earth was higher, and that it was formed of small islands, scattered 

 in a vast ocean, and that no great continent existed ; a result which, in 

 other respects, agrees with the disposition of coal formations, and at which 

 Deluc and others have arrived by different means. The second and third 

 periods have some of the characters of the larger islands and the coasts; 

 and, lastly, the fourth period, or tertiary formation, is analogous to the 

 vegetables of the temperate zones, especially the forests of Europe and 

 IS'orth America. Many of these vegetables have been developed before we 

 find any traces of animals; but, as we advance, we perceive cold-blooded 

 animals; but it is only in the middle of the fourth period that animals with 

 warm blood are found in any number, and their appearance coincides in a 

 remarkable degree with the multiplication of dicotyledons. With such 

 facts before him, the young author has been unable to "resist the temptation 

 of trying to account for these wonderful vicissitudes, and he thinks they are 

 owing to the action of these vegetables upon the atmosphere. He supposes 

 that the carbon now employed in organic life was at first, under the form of 

 carbonic acid, an integral part of the atmosphere, from which it was ex- 

 tracted by vegetable absorption. "Being surcharged with this acid," says 

 M. Adolphe Brongniart, " the atmosphere was as favourable to the rapid 

 growth of plants, as it was injurious to that of animals with warm blood; 

 and it is before these animals show themselves, that we find these enormous 

 masses of vegetables. Animals with cold blood do not require so pure an 

 air, and have appeared when much of this carbonic acid has been absorbed ; 

 and the animals with warm blood have only existed when the air has been 

 more completely purified by the long continued action of vegetation, and 

 especially vegetation consisting of large forests, spread over vast continents." 



BOTANY. 

 Wrthod of preferring Funousses. — Mr. Cook, surgeon, Trinity-square, 

 Tower-hill, put into brine a little below saturation, the Clavaria Muscoides, 

 suspended by a delicate thread of silk, and closed the bottle by means of 

 triads. It became a little darker in colour, but suffered no other change. — 

 Philosophical Magazine, Oct. 18-28. 



Mice Paper.— Rice paper is the pith of the Tong-t-sao. (Calamus pe- 

 tiwuts, I.ourier,) as M. Vallot has demonstrated in the Memoires de V Acade- 

 mic de Dijon, 1820, p. 187-190. 



y umber of f'lants.— Known plants are placed in 2,409 genera, and a- 

 pnount to 16,712 species. 



ZOOUIf.Y. 



A South American Variety or Species of the Genus Homo.— Mr. Deville 

 exhibited a short time since, some skulls of a South American tribe of the 

 human race, which is, or is supposed to be, extinct. — Magazine of Natural 

 History, No. X. p. 456. 



