284 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 
Prof. Johnston in a late communication has informed us that from 
attentive consideration of the analyses of diseased and healthy potatoes 
made in his laboratory during the past year, he has been led to re- 
commend the application of a certain manure to the potato crop, as cal- 
culated, in many cases if not universally, to arrest the disease. He does 
not speak of this with confidence, but as a thing yet to be tried. The 
publication containing his paper has not yet: feqahad us and we are 
consequently unable to say more. | 
We are forced to conclude that the origin and causes of this disease 
are at present unknown ; its mysterious marks have appeared suddenly 
on two continents, separated by wide oceans; under heat and drought, 
rain and cold, on wet and dry, light and heavy soils, at every: elevation, 
and in eyery variety of potato. ‘Those who have most carefully inves-_ 
tigated its peculiarities, most widely examined its range, are most un- 
decided as to its cause. 
Only by a very long and extended series of experiments, ineaia ac- 
cumulation of accurate results, can we hope to arrive at a solution of 
this mysterious problem. No subject of the present day offers more 
attractions to the scientific man, or a wider field of usefulness. The 
very existence of a crop of incalculable importance seems at stake; 
practice has entirely failed in its efforts to correct the evil, and looks to” 
science for that aid, which, if within the limits of possibility, should be 
afforded. : 3.P.ee 
2. Paper from the ikeneaiil aaie has pnoposeds in a late com- 
munication, the manufacture of paper from the fibres of the banana, and _ 
trials by a committee succeeded in producing a white and good paper: 
M. Rogue intends to carry on this operation in Algeria, not merely from 
the banana, but also from the aloes’ and other textile plants ; and itis 
said that a large grant of land has been made to him in the Colony for 
that purpose. 
3. On the Mounds bunk Relics of the Ancient Nations of America.— 
(The following is an extract of a letter from the senior editor to Dr. G. A- 
Mantell, London. )—At a special meeting of the Connecticut Academy 
of Arts and Sciences, July 7, 1846, various interesting facts relating t0 
the mounds of the Ohio and Scioto valley, and specimens from them, 
illustrating their objects and the habits of their builders, were laid. bes 
fore the Academy, by Mr. E. Geo. Squier.. These structures of the 
west are either enclosures, some evidently intended as fortifications, 
mounds of various forms and sizes. This gentleman, in connection 
with Dr. Ser of Chillicothe, Ohio, has opened eighty of the mounds, 
personally at.the excavation of more than sixty. 
pments aes omit pr ak are has potintetl himself tha ) 
