78 



fresh water, 

 and once or 

 twice again by 

 the sea. 



Petrifaction. 



Transition 

 strata. 



kips. 



Climate of 

 Genoa. 



Department of 

 the Doubs. 



Albumen a 

 remedy against 



inter iq a tents. 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



freshwater, in which these gypsums were deposited; but 

 that it returned at least once to cover the land it had aban- 

 doned, and destroy the beings that had lived on it. On this 

 occasion perished the palceotheria and the anoplotheria. 

 Every thing- renders it probable however, that it returned a 

 second time, and that the elephants disappeared in this se- 

 cond catastrophe. 



Mr. Sage presented to the class a ferruginous petrifaction, 

 having some appearance of a bundle of tobacco leaves tied 

 round with threads, but probably part of a stalk of bamboo, 

 or some other jointed plant. He likewise gave descriptions 

 and analyses of a few ftones ; and communicated some ex- 

 periments on the cohesion lime contracts with various sub- 

 stances. 



Mr. Brochant, mine engineer, presented some observa- 

 tions on strata much more ancient than those in the vicinity 

 of Paris, which Werner has called transition strata, because 

 they are placed between the primitive mountains, anterior 

 to all organization, and the secondary strata, that abound 

 with remains of animals. Most of them are composed of 

 fragments of the primitive rocks, united into breccias by 

 cements of various kinds, in which we begin to perceive oc- 

 casionally remains of organized substances, either vegetable 

 or auimal. Saussure had already noticed these in the 

 Alps, but Mr. B» has traced them to much greater extent, 

 principally along that side of the Alps which looks toward 

 France. 



Mr. Lescallier has shown, that the climate of Liguria is 

 more favourable to the plants of hot countries, than any 

 other in the same latitude : the winter, though longer, not 

 being so cold, because the Apennines shelter it from the 

 north wind ; while the summer is less scorching, from the 

 vicinity of the sea on one hand, and the snows on the other. 



Mr. Girod-Chantrans has given the natural history of 

 the department of the Doubs. 



Mr. Seguin, who formerly found gelatine the true remedy 



against intermittent fevers*, has this year tried albumen 



with good success. He has already cured forty-one patients, 



by giving them the whites of three eggs diluted with warm 



* See Journal, vol. VI, p. 138, and XIII, j>. 205. 



water* 



