44 BOTANY. 
pearance encourages us in the hope that bee keeping will be con- 
ducted on a more scientific basis than ever before in this country. 
UNDERGROUND Treasures; How anb Wurre To Finp THeEm.* 
The design of this little book is to make every farmer and land- 
owner his own mining engineer, and when his knowledge is ex- 
hausted to induce him to go to some professional mining engineer 
for advice. Perhaps the recent diamond swindle demonstrates the 
need of just such a guide as this. The plan seems well carried 
out, the descriptions of minerals, ores and gems being terse and 
clear, and the hints as to how to find them are practical. After 
describing the eighty minerals which out of two hundred and 
forty-four found within the United States are of practical use, 
the author gives chapters on “ Prospecting for Diamonds, Gold, 
Silver, Copper, Lead and Iron,” ‘‘ Mineral Springs,” “ Artificial 
Jewelry—How Made and How Detected,” ‘Discovery of Gold in 
California,” and a concluding one on the “Discovery of Silver 
in Nevada.” 
* 
BOTANY. 
Past VEGETATION OF THE GLoBEe.—Nine years after the publica- 
tion of Brongniart’s “ Tableau” Dr. Paterson discovered, in a bitu- 
minous shale near Edinburgh, Pothocites Grantoni, which has been 
generally accepted ever since as a monocotyledonous flowering 
plant. Itcan therefore no longer be asserted that in the Paleozoic 
period the higher Phanerogams were absent. Nor can it be even 
said that, amongst Phanerogams, Pothocites belongs to a very 
a Pame type. The condensation of its inflorescence and the 
reduced structure of its flowers imply, on any hypothesis of evolu- 
tion, the previous existence of flowering plants which had under- 
gone less differentiation. Indeed, for anything that can be 
_ positively said to the contrary, there may have been during the 
( 
l 
_ Carboniferous epoch a phanerogamic covering to the earth hardly 
less complicated than there is now. Our knowledge of the 
vegetation of that time is confined to the forests of arborescent 
l Jryptogams fringing the deltas of great rivers. Stems of conifer- 
ous trees were occasionally floated down from the higher ground ; 
the plants that grew with them we know nothing. 
Underground Treasures: How and Where to Find Them. A Key for the Ready 
Essmtastia or all the Useful a= within the United a By Prof. James | 
Orton, Ilustrated. Hartford, Conn. on, Dustin & Co. 1872. 12mo, pp. 137. 
