576 OIL WELLS OF TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA. 
in the same manner by a flower. Thus we have four leaves in two 
pairs closely sitting about a flower. As thus arranged spreading 
each way they are all fuller at the base on the side next the flower, 
where there is least light and least room. This is contrary to 
what we should expect according to De Candolle and Spencer. 
An examination of the plant for a moment will make it clear. — 
Every botanist is familiar with the unsymmetrical petals on the 
sides of the pea flower, violet, lobes of mint blossom, and those 
Of other plants. | : 
The strangest thing under want of symmetry that I have seen 
in plants, is found in the cotyledons of our cultivated buckwheat. 
While in the seed, they are pressed together, and rolled up from 
Fig. 107. one edge. hen the co- 
tyledons have acquired 
their full growth, they 
have petioles about half 
an inch long ; each cotyle- 
don is fullest on its left 
side, so they would not 
match each other without 
turning one of them over. 
Perhaps this is a puzzle 
- analogous to homologizing 
the hand and foot on the 
Cotyledons of Teaepyrum eseutentum, Buckwheat, same side of the body. 
; All our theories so far 
read or imagined, such as influence of heat, light, gravitation, 
number of ranks on the stem, length of petiole, pressure, natural 
selection, do not satisfactorily explain all these peculiarities. 
So far, we agree with Dr. Wilder, “ That such peculiarities are 
true and original characteristics of the plants, and that they are 
produced by the so-called vital force acting in a definite way.” 
On THE OIL WELLS or TERRE Havre, Inprana.—By Dr. T. STERRY ` 
UNT. 
In previous publications, I have endeavored to show that the 
source of the petroleum in southwestern Ontario, and probably in 
some other localities, is to be sought in the oleiferous limestones 
of the Corniferous ‘and Niagara formations, both of which abound © 
