AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 323 



BEITISH ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMExN'T OF 



SCIENCE. 



September Meeti?ig, 1857. 



[A paper on the proportion of i:>liospliorus in Legumin, by Dr. 

 Voelcker.] 



"The use of the prism in detecting impurities," by Dr. Glad- 

 stone. The instructive results obtained with liquids when the ray 

 of light traverses them in a wedge-shaped vessel. He showed the 

 value of this means in detecting impurities in colored confection- 

 ery, tea, mustard, wines, liquors, pigments, gems, and pharmaceu- 

 tical preparations, &c. 



VITALITY OF SEEDS. 



Dr. Daubeny, of Oxford, read the report of the committee on 

 the vitality of seeds. He exhibited a register kept in the Botanic 

 garden, showing the experiments on seeds. The shortest period 

 of vitality was eight years, the longest forty-three years. 



Grasses 8, lilies 10, conifers 12, lindens 27, malvaceseS?, legu- 

 minosse, or fabaceae 43, rhamnaceee 21, boragniacese (borage,) 8, 

 convolvulus 14, compositse 8, umbilifers 8, crucifers 8. 



INDIAN CORN. 



Mr. George Emerson, of the United States, stated his doubt of 

 its being strictly a plant of the new world, from the fact of its 

 being found in a florcJ decoration in Rome, in the time of Raf- 

 faelle. (I suppose he means Raphael Sanzio, who was in his 

 prime in about the year 1507, after the voyage of Columbus. H. 

 Meigs.) Bravo, Emerson ! try again ! 



The Chairman thought that question had been settled by Al- 

 fonso De Candolle, in his recent work on the geographical distri- 

 bution of plants, quite complete. 



Mr. Moore, of the Dublin Botanic garden, related an instance 

 of his success in producing a new species of leguminous plant, from 

 seeds obtained by Mr. John Ball, from a vase discovered in an 

 Egyptian tomb, and that he had picked out of the wood of a de- 

 cayed elm, at least fifty years old, seeds of Laburnum, many of 

 which, when planted, produced young trees. He had raised bar- 

 beries from seeds in raspberry jam. notwithstanding the heat em- 



