1 70 Foreign Literature and Science. 



Mr. Marcet, of Geneva, having soaked sensitive and other 

 plants in an aqueous solution of opium, remarked, that it 

 also extinguished the action of vegetable life. Thence, Car- 

 radori conckides, that plants have contractable muscular 

 fibres. Mr. Marcet has thought that vegetables also pos- 

 sess something analogous to a nervous system, since the first 

 of these poisons acts on contraction, the second on the sen- 

 sibility in animals. — Jour, de Pharm. Ann. of Phil. 



11. Raining Trees. — In the ancient histories of travellers 

 in America, and also by Thevet in his Cosmographia, men- 

 tion is made of a tree which attracted the clouds from the 

 heavens, and converted them into rain in the dry deserts. 

 These relations have been considered as fables. There has 

 lately been found in Brazil a tree, the young branches of 

 which drop water, which falls almost like a shower. This 

 tree to which Leander has given the name of cuhea pluviosa, 

 is transferred by M. Decandolle to the genus ccesalpinicf. 

 (pluviosa,) in his Prodromus, vol. II. p. 483. Also, many 

 vegetables, as the calamus rotang, and tender climbing 

 plants, the vine, and other twigs, at the season of sap, tveeji 

 abundantly, particularly when they are cut. — Jour, de Phar. 

 Ann. Phil. 



12. Phosphorescent Plants. — Several cryptogamous sub- 

 terraneans, have been observed to be luminous in the dark. 

 M. Neas, of Esenbeck, cites after M. Heinzman, the rhiza- 

 morpha phosphorescent found in the mines of Hesse, in the 

 north of Germany ; the light is visible at the extremities of 

 the plants, especially when it is broken. This phosphores- 

 cence disappears in hydrogen gas, oxide of carbon, and chlo- 

 rine gas. Some other rhizmorpha as the sid}t.erranea and 

 the acidala, have also appeared phosphorescent, to several 

 persons working in the mines. — Jour, de Pharm. Ann. Phil. 



Extracted and translated by Prof. J. Griscom. 



13. Instruction in Geography. — M. Alexander De Hum- 

 boldt is on the point of opening in this place, (Berlin,) a 

 course of instruction in physical geography. The influx of 

 persons who have inscribed their names as attendants upon 

 his lessons is so great that the Hall is found in,sufiicient to 

 receive all the auditors. M. De Humboldt, who is acquaint- 



