382 Bibliography. 
12. Boston Journal of Natural History, containing papers and 
communications read before ihe Boston Society of Natural History. 
Vol. Ill, No. 4. Boston: Little & Brown. 1840-41.—Our readers 
have been well apprised of the sound progress of the society, whose 
last published transactions stand at the head of this notice. One of 
the best evidences of useful activity in a scientific society, is the regu- 
lar publication of valuable memoirs on those departments of the great 
field in which its labors are prosecuted. The stated meetings of. such 
bodies are very interesting and important to those. who have the good 
fortune to live within the sphere of their influence. But. to naturalists, 
occupying distant and isolated positions, publications of the above char- 
acter are the only symptom of vitality, and are welcomed as. the evi- 
dence of good deeds done, and the earnest of better things to come. 
The articles contained in the present number, are a continuation of 
Dr..Amos Binney’s monograph of the Helices of the United States, 
with plates: Further notices of some New England lichens, by Ed- 
ward Tuckerman, Jr., LL.B: Attempts to ascertain some of the 
hepatic mosses of Massachusetts, with remarks, by Rev. John Lewis 
Russell : Descriptions of the fishes of the Ohio river and its tributaries, 
_ by Jared P. Kirtland—continued, (with plates:) Results of an exam- 
ination of the shells of Massachusetts, and their geographical di 
tion, by Augustus A. Gould, M. D.—(vid. notice of this able: pats 
in our present number.) In addition to the above, the number con- 
tains the constitution and by-laws of the society, with a list of members 
and officers of the society, additions to the library, and an index of the 
contents of the third volume of the Journal, of which this is the con- 
cluding number. . 
a. Transactions of the Seaatt ‘Society of Tidiabacgb Vol. XY, 
Part I. Edinburgh, 1841, 4to, pp. 263.—This part of. the Royal So- 
ciety of Edinburgh’s Transactions contains that remarkable pape? by 
Dr. Samuel Brown, of Edinburgh, on the decomposition of substances 
. heretofore considered elementary, or the transmuting of one substance 
into another by the aid of heat and pressure. It may be remem 
that we noticed this paper in our last, (see this Vol. p- 208,) having 
received an early copy in proof, and then expressed the intention of 
republishing the article entire, but our engagements to home COLTES: 
‘results stated by Dr. Brown 
