MISCELLANY. 



763 



Journal of Science and the Arts, has well- 

 nigh demonstrated that dry land existed in 

 the Lower Silurian age. He communicates 

 the discovery of two small specimens repre- 

 senting branches or small stems of a species 

 referable to Sigillaria, and found on Long- 

 street Creek, near Lebanon, Ohio, in clay- 

 beds positively referable to the Cincinnati 

 group of the Lower Silurian. With the ex- 

 ception of these Lebanon specimens, the 

 geological formations of the United States 

 have not afforded as yet any records of 

 plants earlier than those of the Lower De- 

 vonian. 



The Uses of Bees' Wings. — At the late 

 Convention of Bee-Keepers at Louisville, D. 

 L. Adair read an essay on the various uses 

 of the bee's wings, in which he holds that, 

 besides flying, the wing of the bee serves 

 two or three other important ends. The 

 horny frame, upon which the fine membrane 

 of the wings is stretched, is composed of 

 hollow tubes of a hard substance called 

 chitine. These tubes are double, being one 

 tube inside of another. The inner ones are 

 extensions of the tracheae, through which 

 the air circulates in breathing ; between 

 this and the other tube is a space through 

 which the blood circulates. The blood is 

 brought in contact with the air through the 

 thin walls of the air-tubes, just as the air 

 and blood are brought together in the hu- 

 man lungs, and with the same effect. 



The nervous filaments in like manner 

 pass to the wings ; they follow the respira- 

 tory tubes and all the fine venations of the 

 wing, terminating in every part of its sur- 

 face in papillae, which in all animals are 

 the vehicles through which sensations are 

 perceived. Hence we may infer that the 

 wings are the organs of some sensation. 

 Are these nerve-filaments intended merely 

 for noting tactile sensations ? Mr. Adair is 

 of the opinion that by means of them the 

 bee is made conscious of odors. " Some 

 naturalists have suggested the antennae as 

 the organs of smell ; but, as they appear to 

 be poorly adapted to perform such an office, 

 it is just about as likely that they smell 

 with them as that they see with them. In- 

 visible particles emanating from odorous 

 bodies, coming in contact with the olfac- 

 tory nerves, produce the sense of smell. 



These atoms are mixed with and floating in 

 the air, and, in order to collect them, a con- 

 siderable volume of air must be made to 

 pass over their surfaces — a thing which the 

 wings certainly accomplish in an eminent 

 degree." 



The sense of hearing in bees has never 

 been localized by naturalists, though some 

 have supposed that the antennae are the or- 

 gans of this sense also. " What appendage 

 of the bee," asks Mr. Adair, " would be bet- 

 ter suited to receive sound-vibrations than 

 the thin, stiff membranes composing the 

 wings ? " 



The Lignite-Beds of the Reeky Moun- 

 tains. — The opinion having been advanced 

 that the so-called lignite-beds of the Rocky 

 Mountains have been formed by the heap- 

 ing of drifted materials, and not by growth 

 in situ, Mr. L. Lesquereux replies as follows, 

 in Silliman's Journal, to one of the argu- 

 ments urged in favor of the opinion — viz., 

 that the under-clays of the lignite-beds have 

 no roots : " I can say," he writes, " from 

 repeated and personal observation?, that 

 most of the lignite-beds of the West, which 

 have passed under my examination, have 

 the under-clays full of roo\lets or of roots 

 of the floating plants, which were the first, 

 generally at least, to contribute to the for- 

 mation of the bed of combustible material 

 by their debris. At the Raton Mountains, 

 at Canon City, at Geh rung's, near Colorado, 

 at Golden, Marshall, Black Butte, etc., the 

 coal is everywhere underlaid by chocolate- 

 colored shale, often a compound of these 

 roots or rootlets, so compact, indeed, that 

 they cannot be determined, nor their forms 

 distinctly recognized. Of course, the un- 

 der-shales do not contain any roots (true 

 roots of trees) ; the coal of the carbonifer- 

 ous, too, never has any, for the good reason 

 that trees do not grow in water, and that 

 they only invade peat-bogs when the ground 

 is solid enough to support them. And even 

 then the roots grow horizontally, and do 

 not descend deep into the matter which, 

 generally impregnated by water, is to a de- 

 gree inaccessible to atmospheric influence. 



The so-called roots of the clay-beds of 

 the carboniferous measures, or the Stiff- 

 maria, are not roots, but floating leaves. 

 And even their cylindrical stems are rarely 



