On New Genera and Species of Nyctaginacea. 319 
‘The entire working battery generally requires renewal once a 
day, the process being conducted as follows: One zine and one 
silver plate are taken from the battery; the silver placed in the 
solution of chlorid of iron, and the zine taken to the water tub 
outside the door of the battery room, where it is scrubbed clean 
with a hard brush. It is then re-amalgamated at the quicksilver 
tub, and taken back to the battery. The silver plate is trans- 
ferred from the chlorid of iron solution to the adjacent fresh 
Water tub. Another plate is then transferred from the battery to 
the chlorid solution, and another zine cleaned, washed, and put 
k in the battery with the first silver. In this manner the whole 
tery can be renewed without sensibly interrupting its action. 
_ When the loss of weight from the rolled copper in both vats 
Indicates that the required thickness of the electrotype is gained, 
plate is withdrawn from the battery, detached from its frame, 
its back smoothed, and its edges filed, until a separation can be 
By separation, the original becomes liberated, and the 
alto or reversed relief is silvered and electrotyped exactly as an 
‘nginal. The copy from it, or the electrotyped basso, will, if 
Process has been properly conducted, be a perfect fac-simile 
of the original, and in hardness, ductility, and elasticity, will 
“qual the best rolled and hammered or planished copper plate. 
Arr, XXXTII.— Brief Characters of some New Genera and 
Species of Nyctaginacee, principally collected in Texas and 
ew Mexico, by Cuarues Wricut, Esq., under the direction of 
Col. J.D, Grauam, U.S. Topogr. Engineers, late Chief of the 
Scientific Corps of the Mexican Boundary Commission; by 
Asa Ray, M, 
(Concluded from p. 263.) 
& A : 
herd, Hook.—The excellent specimens gathered by Mr. Wright 
on the Rio Grande, New Mexico, plainly show Dr. Torrey’s A. 
micrantha was founded on the precociously fertilized state of a 
Pecies, the fully developed flowers of which are the very largest 
. the genus. I will not hesitate, in this case, to change the spe- 
Ty, name. In the appendix to Stansbury’s Exploration of the 
alley of the Great Salt Lake, p. 395, Dr. Torrey suggests that 
7e plant in question may be only a small-flowered state of Abro- 
ha mellifera. 
decguifestly different species, the fruit of which is winged, in- 
 @nd more strongly than in any other genuine Abronia,—so 
