• 



116 Scientific Intelligence. 



ted above the chloroformed leaf are not at all affected. DeCandolIe, 

 in making an analogous experiment on a sensitive plant with a drop of 

 nitric or sulphuric acid, remarked on the contrary, that it was the leaves 

 above the leaf touched which closed, without those situated beneath 

 participating in this motion.* The observation of our learned country- 

 man is quite naturally explained by attributing to the ascending sap the 

 transport of the corrosive poison, a transport which, in this case, would 

 take place in the direction from below upwards. But how to account 

 for the apparent transmission of the effects of the chloroform in the 

 contrary direction, from above downwards? Might the descending sap 

 more peculiarly have the property of transmitting the narcotic effects 

 of this singular compound from one part of the sensitive plant to the 

 other; or might there exist in this plant some special organ susceptible 

 of being affected by certain vegetable poisons in a manner analogous 

 to the nervous system of animals? Notwithstanding the interesting 

 investigations of Dutrochet and other physiologists, there still prevails 

 too much obscurity on this subject to hazard an opinion. But in any 

 case the fact is singular, and appears to me to merit the attention of 

 persons accustomed to engage in questions of this nature. 



Experiments of the same kind, made on the contractility of the 

 sensitive plant with rectified ether, have furnished me results nearly 

 similar to the preceding ; with this difference, however, that whilst one 

 drop of chloroform placed on the common petiole of a leaf situated at 

 the extremity of a branch of a sensitive plant suffices to cause most of 

 the other leaves situated beneath on the same branch to close, ether in 

 general produces an effect only on the leaf itself with which it is put 

 in contact. The next leaves have generally appeared to me not affect- 

 ed. I must however add, that my experiments with ether having been 

 made after others, and at a time of year when the sensitiveness of the 

 plant had already begun to diminish, it is possible that the intensity of 

 the effects produced may have thereby been affected. 



18. Analysis of the Water of the Mediterranean on the Coast of 

 France, (Phil. Mag., May, 1849, xxxiv, 398 ; from Comptes Rendus, 

 Oct., 1848.) — M. J. Usiglio analyzed the water from the foot of Mount 

 St. Clair, about 400 metres from the port of Cette. • 



100 parts gave 



Chlorid of sodium, . . 2*9424 



Bromid of sodium, 0*0556 



Chlorid of potassium, 0*0505 



Chlorid of magnesium, ...... 0*3219 



Sulphate of magnesia, 0*2477 



Sulphate of lime, 0-1357 



Carbonate of lime, 0*0114 



Peroxyd of iron, 00003 



Water. 



5 



100 000 



19. Impurity of Commercial Bromine, (Phil. Mag., May, 1849, vol 

 xxxiv, p. 399; from Journ. de Ph. et de Ch., Fevrier, 1849.)— M. ?o 



* DeCandolIe, Physiologie Vegetate, vol ii, p. 866. 



