LITERATURE AND LITERARY PROGRESS IN 1878. 



477 



portion is called by Stahl the ascogonium, and 

 the straight protruding portion the trichogyne, 

 from its resemblance to the growth of that 

 name in the Floridia. To the trichogyne 

 spermatia adhere and gradually fuse together 

 with them, and their junction is followed by 

 an extensive development of the ascogonium, 

 while the trichogyne is seen to wither away; 

 hypha3 are then seen to bud forth from the as- 

 cogonium, which swelling at their ends form 

 the asci of the new apothecium, while a fresh 

 growth of the ordinary hyphfe, which surround 

 the ascogonium, follows indirectly from the 

 act of impregnation, and these form the tissue 

 of the rest of the structure. There can thus be 

 no doubt that this operation is the true repro- 

 ductive process, and that the spermatia are the 

 antherozoids, and the spermagonia form their 

 antheridia. The experiments and observations 

 were made on three species, the Endocarpon 

 pusillum, Thelidium minutulum, and Polyllas- 

 tia regulosa. In a few months he succeeded 

 in producing new perithecia and spores in the 

 Endocarpon, by cultivating the spores with 

 the hymeneal gonidia ; and also raised peri- 

 thecia and spores of the Thelidium by the cul- 

 ture of its spores with its hymeneal gonidia. 

 Then, as a final proof of the Schwendenerian 

 theory, he attempted to produce a thallus by 

 cultivating the spores of one species with the 

 gonidia of the other, and succeeded in raising 

 a thallus of Thelidium with gonidia of Endo- 

 carpon by placing the spores of the latter with 

 the gonidia which had been discharged with 

 them in water, in which the gonidia became 

 scattered ; then he placed spores of Thelidium 

 in the same water, which when they germi- 

 nated attached themselves to the gonidia of the 

 Endocarpon. When Rees and Bonnet suc- 

 ceeded in making Collema, hyphs9 grow in 

 nostocs, the opponents to the Schwendeneri- 

 an theory did not accept it as a normal ger- 

 mination, as no fruit was formed. Stahl's 

 success in growing a complete thallus from 

 hyphsB of one species and gonidia of another 

 is a strong proof of the algo-fungoid theory, 

 which can hardly be explained on any other 

 hypothesis. In Germany lichens are already 

 being classified in botanical publications as a 

 subdivision of ascomycetes, instead as of a dis- 

 tinct group between algse and fungi. 



LIFE-SAVING SERVICE. See SERVICE, 

 LIFE-SAVING. 



LITERATURE AND LITERARY PROG- 

 RESS IN 1878. Judged by certain superficial 

 indications, it might be thought that there had 

 been during the past year a very considerable 

 activity in literature. The number of new 

 publications was not small; considering the 

 long-continued and still but partially relieved 

 business stagnation, it might appear large. But 

 some of the books announced as new were in 

 fact reissues of old ones. Business changes for 

 the last two years had caused an extensive 

 transfer of stereotype plates. From some of 

 these new impressions with new date and fresh 



designs in binding have been "noticed" as 

 new books. The works of standard authors 

 have been reproduced in the usual variety of 

 forms. Original works now first published 

 formed a less than usual proportion of all that 

 were printed ; and when these are examined, 

 with however considerate and lenient an esti- 

 mate, a doubt arises how many of them have 

 a chance of being read ten years from date. 

 But it is for us to record, not to prophesy. 



POETEY. The "Works" of Bryant are 

 "complete." They were completed but little 

 sooner than his life, which went suddenly out, 

 sparing him the liability to bodily and mental 

 decay happily escaped by him up to and be- 

 yond fourscore years. He left no line which 

 dying he would wish to blot, and many which 

 the world will be in no haste to forget. If 

 we err in this belief, so much the worse for 

 the world. A younger poet has likewise com- 

 pleted his works, though not in his own inten- 

 tion or in the hopes of his many friends. 

 Bayard Taylor was a poet of culture rather 

 than of original power. But he was not with- 

 out " the vision and the faculty divine," and 

 earnest culture enabled him to body forth the 

 issue of his imagination in forms of true poetic 

 art. His poem "Prince Deukalion" had just 

 appeared, and was receiving the meed of a 

 welcoming criticism, when his career was end- 

 ed by death. It is now read with the advan- 

 tage derived from the pathetic interest felt in 

 the author's memory, and is perhaps more val- 

 ued than it will be when his personality shall 

 have faded from view, and the poem is left to 

 stand or fall on its own sole merits. It can 

 never be popular, however it may satisfy the 

 more thoughtful. The collected writings of 

 the late Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman include a 

 small number of poems much prized by a lim- 

 ited circle, and not to be read without admira- 

 tion of the genius and character they reveal. 

 She is remembered from her relations with 

 Edgar A. Poe, whose memory she ever cher- 

 ished and was ready to vindicate. A pensive 

 interest attaches to a little volume entitled 

 " For Thy Name's Sake, and Other Poems, by 

 Millie Colcord, with a Memoir." The life de- 

 scribed is that of a happy, pious childhood, 

 and the poems are the spontaneous utterance 

 of such a child, unaffectedly simple and joyous, 

 and having the light and glow of poetical vi- 

 tality whether enough to have developed in- 

 to decided imaginative power, had her life been 

 permitted to reach maturity, can now only be 

 conjectured. 



Mr. Longfellow, still happily spared to us, 

 has collected his recent poetical compositions 

 into a volume entitled " Keramos, and Other 

 Poems." Some of his later pieces, especially 

 his sonnets, are among the most richly poetic 

 and artistically perfect of all his works. There 

 is a charm and a mature power in what he has 

 fancifully called the aftermath of his poetical 

 harvest, that give him a firmer hold than ever 

 upon the admiration both of his numerous 



