1886. ] Botany. 727 
MiscELLANEOUS.—R. Brauns proposes! the use of methylene 
iodide as a means of separating the constituents of rocks. The 
specific gravity of the liquid is 3.33 at the ordinary temperature, 
varying from 3.3485 at 5° to 3.3045 at 25°. The author claims 
for this substance advantages over the heavy solutions now in 
such general use, while he recognizes at the same time the disad- 
vantages of the necessity for the use of benzine in diluting 
(neither alcohol nor water can be used for this purpose). e 
physical properties of the substance are given in detail, and an 
experiment made to test its practicability as a medium for the 
separation of minerals of high specific gravity shows it to work 
very satisfactorily. 
BOTANY.? 
prepare a 
(June) of the Botanical Gazette ought to satisfy every demand of 
the inquirer after the best botanizing methods. The general 
methods of making specimens are treated in notes and communi- 
cations from ten different botanists. How to collect certain 
plants receives the attention of twenty-one specialists. The Gray 
Herbarium and the National Herbarium are described with some 
uable series of communications. Perhaps the one fact most 
Prominently brought out, is that good specimens are made by 
care and painstaking, rather than by following this or that par- 
ticular method. The lesson of greatest importance to the be- 
sinner taught in this herbarium number, is that he must make 
good specimens. It is not enough to gather samples and dry 
OSt say, 
Another lesson which the young botanist will learn, is that 
botanizing, to-day, is somewhat enlarged above what the fathers 
knew and practiced it. Flowering plants, ferns, mosses, liver- 
= Worts, lichens, fungi—big and little, seaweeds—from the sea itself 
~ 4nd-from the fresh water—all these are to be looked for, gathered, _ 
Prepared, mounted, arranged. | 
The Botanical Collectors’ Hand-book, published a few years ago- 
_ by Professor W. W. Bailey, will also be found to contain much — 
of value to the young collector. Many of the suggestions it con- 
ns will materially shorten the work of the beginner. __ 
In the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, the subject of 
herborizing was well treated by Lyman Hoysradt eight years 
| Neues Jahrb. f. Mineralogie, etc., 1886, 11, p. 72. 
_ “ited by Professor CHARLES E. Bessey, Lincoln, Nebraska. 
VƏL. Xx.—no. vit, : 8 : 
them ; the work must be well done—artistically done, one might is a 
