344 Miscellaneous, 



cent., oxygen 6*64 per cent., carbonic acid 5'35 per cent., being about 

 the composition of the air from a well- manured soil. This carbonic 

 acid carried into the leaves with the sap, and also that which they 

 may absorb directly from the atmosphere, decomposed along with 

 water under sunlight, must be the source of the glucose (C^ H'- O^^) 

 which it is the principal function of foliage to produce. This glu- 

 cose, in fixing or abandoning the elements of water, becomes sugar, 

 starch, cellulose, or other hydrates of carbon, which, in whatever part 

 of the plant accumulated or deposited, and however transformed or 

 retransformed, must always have originated from carbonic acid and 

 water in the green parts of plants. In closing his present paper 

 with some illustrations of this now familiar view, Boussingault an- 

 nounces that his more recent experiments will enable him to demon- 

 strate the direct formation of saccharine matter by the green parts of 

 vegetables exposed to the light. — Silliman's American Journal, July 

 1866. 



Observations on a Malady of the Cotton-plant, called " Pelagra,^* 

 and on some Fungi which accompany it. By G. Gasparrini. 



In the summer of 18C3 some cotton-plants cultivated in the pro- 

 vince of Naples were attacked by a disease which alarmed the culti- 

 vators, who have become frightened about the attacks of Mucedinese, 

 in consequence of the ravages of O'idium. The author examined the 

 blackened stems of the plants attacked, and detected several Fungi 

 of the family Mucedinese — amongst o'Ca^x^ Alternaria tenuis. This 

 production did not appear to him to be autonomous, but one of the 

 conidic forms of a small fungus of higher order, namely Pleospora 

 {SphcBria) herbacea. He regards Penicillium glaucum as a gonidic 

 form of Altei'naria, These, however, are pure hypotheses. 



M. Gasparrini does not attribute the disease of the cotton-plant 

 to these plants, but considers it to be due to meteorological condi- 

 tions. — Bibl. Univ. 1866, Bull. Sci. p. 167. 



Fossil Medusce. 



Professor Haeckel of Jena, who in 1865 called attention to the 

 existence of well-preserved Medusae in the lithographic slates of 

 Eichstadt, belonging probably to the families of iEquoridse and Tra- 

 chynemidae, has published, in a recent number of ' Leonhard und 

 Geinitz's Jahrbuch,' a second notice of two other species of Medusae 

 so well preserved that the family to which they belong can be ascer- 

 tained beyond doubt. They are from the same locality, and belong 

 to the Discophorae, to the family of Rhizostemidae. The restoration 

 which Professor Haeckel has been able to make from the specimens 

 in his possession is quite satisfactory ; and the attention of geologists 

 having been called to this subject, we may expect further interesting 

 developments in the history of Acalephae, since it is now well known 

 that even at the present time a kind of petrifaction of jellyfishes, 

 when thrown upon sandy beaches, readily takes place. — Silliman's 

 Amencan Journal, July 1866. 



