472 /Scientific Intelligence. 



well known to make it need commendation here, and the English 

 form that it has now taken is all the more serviceable because of 

 the wise abridgment which it has received, while all that is essen- 

 tial has been retained. The translation is faithful and accurate but 

 sometimes follows the German idiom more closely than is neces- 

 sary. We may now hope to have instruction in this subject ex- 

 tended among a much larger number of students than has hitherto 

 been possible. The publishers deserve praise for the good ap- 

 pearance which the volume presents and especially for their 

 enterprise in securing copies of the beautiful plates which form 

 so important a part of the German work. 



5. Phenacite in New England, by Geo. F. Ktjnz. (Communi- 

 cated). — In the September number of this Journal, page 222, the 

 finding of phenacite and topaz near Stoneham, Me., is announced ; 

 the locality should have been on Bald Mountain, North Chatham, 

 N. H. Both towns are on the Maine and New Hampshire state 

 line, hence the error now corrected. Another pocket has been 

 found, so that in all over fifty crystals of phenacite and topaz 

 have been procured. 



III. Botany. 



1. Color- granules in flowers and fruits. — With the improved 

 optical appliances and better staining agents employed in recent 

 years the coloiing matters of plants have received renewed atten- 

 tion. The last contribution on the subject is a paper by Courchet, 

 [Ann. Sc. nat. ser. VII, pp. 263-374, pi. 6] which confirms 

 certain statements made* with some hesitation, in a review pub- 

 lished in this Journal during the current year. Courchet's work 

 appears to have been conducted in a careful manner under the 

 supervision of Flahault at Montpelier, and with abundant mate- 

 rial. It is therefore satisfactory to note that it strengthens in all 

 essential particulars the posilion taken by Schirnper, to which 

 reference will soon be made. In view of the importance and the 

 general interest of the subject, it seems proper to give an account 

 of the additions which Courchet has made to our knowledge, and 

 to re-examine briefly the whole matter. 



The earlier investigators made out clearly that the coloring 

 substances in leaves, flowers and fruits were of the following 

 kinds : (1) colored cell-sap ; (2) protoplasmic bodies or color- 

 granules, containing pigments of various kinds; (3) crystals ; (4) 

 pseudo-crystalline forms and amorphous masses. Attempts were 

 made by Unger (1846), Mohl (1851), Tr'ecul (1858), and Weiss 

 (1864), to determine the morphology of these structures, but with 

 comparatively little success. Trecul described the facts with 

 accuracy, and for the most part with clearness, but he gave an 

 undue degree of prominence to his theory of vesicular formations, 

 thus diminishing the value of his work. Weiss stated that the 

 color granules appeared to arise in two ways, (l) by free for- 

 mation from the general mass of protoplasm, and (2) by the 



