440 Scientific Intelligence. 
various meteoric memoirs, especially his ‘‘ Memoir on Meteorites” 
i. are among the more elaborate of his valuable contribu- 
tio His two papers on the “ Determination of Alkalies in Min- 
sr » 1853 and 1872, are very important contributions to analyti- 
cal chemistry, which have become incorporated into the perma- 
nent literature of the science. If full reference to the journals in 
which the several papers Awikiega appeared had been given, it 
would have added to the value and convenience of the vo ume, 
which also lacks an ae 
6. Parthenogenesi n Ferns.—An interesting paper by Dr. Wm. 
G. Fartow, late otteoarle in the botanical department at Harvard 
University, and at the time a student in the laboratory of Professor 
De Bary of Strasburg, entitled An asexual growth from the Pro- 
thallus of Pteris serrulata, was read in January last at a meeting 
of the American Academ my of Arts and Sciences, _— is just printed 
in its Proceedings. fern, as is well known, comes to fructifica- 
tion and produces spores without any fertilization The spores 
in germinating produce a Liverwort-like ee the prea 
on which the two kinds of sexual o sean are developed; the te 
tilization of a cell in the one by a natin atsceidl pee the gre 
results in the development and growth of the former into a bu 
and so re a fern-plant. Now Dr. Farlow has discovered in a 
sowing of the spores of the common Pteris serrulata, prothalli 
which. fe developing fern-plantlets from their substance a 
rom any archegonium, starting in a different way 
direct outgrowth from the prothallus, beginning with a scaled 
duct, but of oateaane — thus far undistinguishable from 
those which arise from an archegonium through fertilization. The 
paper is iiicmuiad by ar sts which show the earlier stages, and 
the difference between this asexual outgrowth and the ordinary 
—— nt. 
r. Farlow, confining himself strictly os the facts of the case 
ert their direct interpretation, does not use the word partheno- 
genesis. But the case seems to he iibetansiadiy analogous to that 
of parthenogenesis in Phenogamous plants, the few cases of whic 
that have been probably, if not unequivocally, made out, are much 
fortified by the present discovery. If it be demurr ed that the 
case is one of badigrow wth, and therefore not of the nature of pat- 
thenogenesis proper; the e repl is, that it comes from a partheno- 
genic spore, which here develops plants without the sexual f fertili- 
zation of that class of plants. The conclusion, if fee facts hold 
lutely necessary in every generation of plants, somewhat as cross 
fertilization, a babi necessary in the long run, generally 
unne acting every generation, only the rule in the —— is 
far more stri 6. 
ntinotaee a as F ty C Catchers.—It has not rarely happened 
that after some curious discovery has been made, and perbaps 
ed by a series of observers, it then comes to he seen that 
the discovery has been long before made, recorded, and forgotten. 
