450 Chronicles of Science. [July, 



Thyme, and Lavender. Planchon has noticed the same fact in similar 

 formations in Provence and Italy, so that it is not the result of a 

 purely local change. The plants of dry localities seem to have 

 become more rare in the South of Europe during the quaternary 

 epoch. In other words, the humidity appears to have been greater, 

 and more generally diffused, as might have been expected in a glacial 

 epoch. When we compare the formations observed in Provence by 

 Saponta, and in Italy by Gaudin, and those at Montpellier, we find 

 that in the latter all the species exist at the present day, whilst in the 

 former there is a mixture of extinct species. The quaternary forma- 

 tions at Montpellier appear, therefore, to belong to a more recent 

 epoch. 



In the Montpellier formation we find figs similar to those of the 

 wild fig and leaves of the vine, which indicate the existence of these 

 plants in the South of Europe, anterior, in all probability, to culture. 

 On the other hand, the Olive is wanting. 



It is stated that in France cases have occurred in which inocula- 

 tion with Oidium Tuckeri, or the fungus which causes the vine 

 disease, has proved fatal to human beings. Wounds accidentally 

 made with the instrument used for cutting off the diseased vine shoots 

 have presented, according to Dr. Collin (Medical Inspector of the 

 Mineral Waters of Saint-Honore, Nievre), marked evidence of poison- 

 ing. In some cases the persons thus wounded have died in from 

 twenty to twenty-five days, notwithstanding the most energetic treat- 

 ment. Messrs. Desmartes and Bouche, of Vitrany, have also concluded, 

 from their experience, that deleterious effects are produced by the 

 Oidium, but they seem rather disposed to establish a coincidence 

 between the epidemic development of the Oidium and a greater 

 frequency of certain forms of inflammation of the mucous membranes. 

 The subject has been submitted to the consideration of the Academy 

 of Medicine in Paris. 



Dr. Alexander Dickson has recently examined the morphological 

 constitution of the Androecium of Mentzelia, and its analogy with 

 that of certain Eosacese. He gives the following result of his inves- 

 tigation of the development of the stamens in Mentzelia aurea. From 

 the fact of the greater number of the stamens not appearing until 

 after the development of the carpels, as well as from a consideration 

 of the peculiar arrangement of the stamens, he believes that here the 

 Androecium really consists of five compound and confluent stamens 

 superposed to the sepals. Dr. Dickson is of opinion that the only 

 essential difference between Mentzelia and its allies, on the one hand, 

 and Loasa and its allies on the other, is, that in the former the evolu- 

 tion of staminal lobes is centripetal, in the latter centrifugal ; both 

 series of genera agreeing in having five compound stamens superposed 

 to the sepals. This difference in stamina! evolution does not appear 

 to Dr. Dickson sufficient to justify the breaking up of the old order 

 Loasacese, as has been done by Payer in his ' Lecons sur les Families 

 Naturelles des Plantes.' In the Kosaceae, where Payer had recognized 

 a similarity in staminal evolutions to the Mantzelise, Dr. Dickson be- 

 lieves that those Androecia whose development has been examined may 



