714 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 383. 



you per Alfred Capt. Felt, and another oppor- 

 tunity offering for Salem I cannot help en- 

 treating you again to have the goodness to 

 comply with my request of collecting and 

 sending me some of your most curious plants 

 and particularly such I have pointed out in 

 my former letters, the numerous opportuni- 

 ties from Salem and Boston to this place will 

 afford you every facility in forwarding me 

 same. 



I am still expecting to hear from you if you 

 got the plants I left for you at Francis Hotel 

 and how you like them. If you have an 

 European Herbarium or wish to make one I 

 am ready to forward you specimens of the 

 finest and nicest Italian and Sicilian plants 

 in return from those I expect from you and 

 beg you will command in everything else in 

 my power. 



Please to remember also to forward me 

 Suplt. you promised me of the plants you have 

 found in your Northern States since the publi- 

 cation of your paper in the American Acad- 

 emy Transactions. 



I would entreat you to include in the plants 

 you may send me, particularly those belonging 

 to the tribe of Orchidean, Graminean, Cala- 

 marise, Muci, Algse, etc., as they are par- 

 ticularly interesting to me and I know you 

 have well determined a number of them 

 through Dr. Muhlenberg's means. 



I should like to know the botanical names of 

 all your Cherries, Vacciniums, etc., or a sketch 

 of their descriptions (since you only mentioned 

 their vulgar name in said paper) to enable me 

 to discover it if you cannot send them in 

 nature with the fruits or flowers. 



I am most sincerely and with the most grate- 

 ful wishes. 



Dear Sir, 



Tour most obedient servant, 

 C. S. Eafinesque, 



Care Mr. Bibbs Conpit, 

 Un Admer. 

 De. Manasseh Cutler, Palermo. 



Hamilton, 

 Near Salem, 

 Massachusetts. 

 favored by Mr. 



Th. Bancroft. 



'nodules in colored blood corpuscles. 

 'Nodules' in mammalian colored corpuscles, 

 such as those referred to by Professor Mac- 

 loskie, were described by Mr. Victor Horsley, 

 of London, in an address delivered on May 4, 

 1897, at a meeting of the 'Arztlicher Verein' at 

 Hamburg. He did not, however, observe them 

 in all the corpuscles, but only in some. In 

 his paper, published, I think, in one of the 

 volumes of collected papers from the Phys- 

 iological Laboratory of University College, 

 London, he mentions that Arndt saw granules 

 in the red corpuscles which stained with 

 methyl violet. Horsley's own observations 

 were made by the intra vitam methylene blue 

 method. In connection with my work on 

 haemolysis, carried on during the past five 

 years, I have had frequent opportunity to ob- 

 serve that whei methylene blue is added to 

 blood laked in various ways, blue granules 

 generally situated eccentrically are revealed 

 in some of the ghosts. G. N. Stewaet. 



A MUD SHOWER. 



To THE Editor of Science : On Saturday, 

 April 12, at noon there occurred what has aptly 

 been called a 'mud shower.' Collars and shirt 

 fronts were spattered with dirt. It lasted only 

 a few minutes, but was sufficiently unpleasant 

 to create considerable discomfort. Window 

 glasses on the western exposure of houses were 

 covered with thousands of drops of dirty 

 water. An examination of these drops with a 

 simple microscope showed what appeared to be 

 little membranous bags containing grains of 

 dust. The dust particles were black with occa- 

 sional instances of yellow and a few of red. 

 The atmosphere at the time of the shower, and 

 before, contained considerable dust. This 

 phenomenon seems to give a striking confirma- 

 tion of the dust-nuclear theory of the forma- 

 tion of rain drops. J. W. Moobe. 



Lafayette College, 

 Easton, Pa. 



the 'prickly peae.' 

 To THE Editor op Science: On page 598, 

 issue of April 11, 1902, is printed the item that 

 the Government of Queenland has offered a 

 reward of $25,000 for the invention of some 

 satisfactory means of destroying the 'prickly 



