510 General Notices. 



attention of government to a revision of these plans; and do not despair of 

 causing them to be modified, and materially improved. 



" Valuable suggestions on various subjects connected with metropolitan 

 improvements have also been received, and entered in a book kept for that 

 purpose. 



" The important object — that of inducing government to prepare a com- 

 prehensive plan of improvement, embracing the general interests of the 

 metropolis, and founded upon an accurate survey — the committee trust has 

 been secured ; but to this alone the committee would not confine their 

 exertions, but would extend them to every point tending to the health, 

 comfort, and well-being of this vast city. 



" They desire especially to effect an improvement of t'he over-crowded and 

 ill-drained neighbourhoods of the poor ; to provide a better description of 

 dwellings for the lower classes, and to adopt every other available means of 

 checking the fearful mortality now raging in the poorer districts. 



" They are anxious to impress the public mind with the fearful consequences 

 arising from the burial of the dead in crowded places, and to encourage, as 

 much as possible, cemeteries formed at a distance from the metropolis. 



"The naming and numbering of streets should also engage the early at- 

 tention of the committee. Every one is not perhaps aware of the great public 

 inconvenience resulting from the total abandonment of this branch of the 

 duties of municipal administration to individual caprice ; in illustration of 

 this, however, it may be mentioned that in some streets there are several 

 houses with the same number ; and that in the commercial part of the me- 

 tropolis alone, there are no fewer than twenty-eight King Streets, twenty 

 Queen Streets, twenty-six Charles Streets, twenty-five Church Streets, 

 twenty George Streets, and twenty-three John Streets, with numerous other 

 examples of a corresponding character. 



" To render their exertions effective, however, and to institute proper en- 

 quiries on all these points, the influence and funds of the Society must be 

 increased. The committee trust they may depend on the individual exer- 

 tions of the members of the Society to obtain a further accession to their 

 numbers ; and they feel persuaded that the objects they have in view require 

 only to be well known to obtain ample support from the public." 



The subscription is only 10s. a year, and 31. 3s. constitutes a member for life. 

 H. Austin, Esq., is the honorary secretary, and the office is No. 20. Bedford 

 Street, Covent Garden. 



A complete Course of Practical Geometry and Plan-Drawing ; treated on a 

 Principle of peculiar Perspicuity : adapted either for Classes or for Self-instruc- 

 tion. By C. W. Pasley, C. B*., Colonel Royal Engineers, F.R. S:, &c. &c. 

 Second edition, much enlarged. 8vo, pp. 608, with numerous woodcuts. 

 London, 1838. 



If the price of this work (24s.) did not put it out of the reach of journey- 

 men gardeners, it is one which we can very strongly recommend to them. It 

 ought to find a place in garden libraries where the books are purchased by 

 the proprietor, and form a part of the garden furniture. A number of the 

 problems will be made use of in our Encyclopedia of Landscape-Gardening 

 and Garden Architecture, if we should ever be able to complete that work. 



MISCELLANEOUS INTELLIGENCE. 



Art. I. General Notices. 



Action of Salts on living Plants. — From various experiments which M. 

 Vogel, sen., has made on the action of salts on living plants, he has arrived 

 at the following conclusions : — 



