284 Scientific Intelligence. 
ing the well-defined casts are of wholly unrecognizable forms, having 
merely a rounded, cracked, lobed, or even coprolitic appearance. Certainly 
many of these masses, which often eo e whole strata, were not fo 
either im the cavities of Polythalamia or Mollusks. The fact, however, 
_ being established beyond a doubt, that Greensand does form casts in the 
"“eavities of various organic bodies, there is a great probability that all the 
masses of this substance, however irregular, were formed in connection 
with organic bodies, and that the chemical changes accompanying the 
decay of the organic matter have been essentially agate Abo the de- 
posits in the cavities, of green and red silicates of iron, and early pure 
wees It is a curious fact in this connection, that the anes organisms, 
as the Diatomacee, Polycistinez, and Spongiolites which accom- 
pay the Polythalamia in the — Stream, do not appear to have any 
fluence in the formation of ¢ 
The discovery of Prof. eEidenbery of the connection between organic 
bodies and the formation of Greensand, is one of very _ sg interest, and 
is one of the many instances which he has given to prove the extensive 
agency of the minutest beings in producing geological changes. 
iI. BOTANY AND ZOOLOGY. 
1. Wild Potatoes in New Mexico and Western Texas. —We have re- 
ceived from Dr. A.J. Myer, U.S. A, through the Surgeon General, a de- 
tailed communication on the discovery in western Texas of what he takes 
to be the common potato (Solanum tuberosum, L.,) in a wild state, ac- 
pear with specimens of the tubers and of be ‘whole plant neatly 
ee and prepared. Dr. Myer first detected the and near the 
no Lacapel and afterwards ascertained that ste was ee widely “diffosed 
if the vel-knows DOLCE were owing, as ma suppose, to an attack 
of minute Fungi, or to a general debility of mart fora | 9 resulting from 
prop»gation for generation after generation by the tuber, and seldom re 
newed from seed, or from both these causes combined, the proper remedy 
would be to begin anew with a wild stock; and that these indigenous 
potatoes of our own country would furnish an caval stock for the 
se, and one which —— be expected to resist the disease for a ts 
time, if not alt 
Such, in brief, is the substance of Dr. Myer’s commendable commut! 
cation, made to his official st Ste the Surgeon General, and by him ‘f 
fered for publication in this Journal. The article is too long to be in- 
his laudable endeavors and observations ought not to pass unuoticed and 
having given this very brief abstract of his principal points,—which he 
