Natural Science News. 



VOL. I 



ALBION, N. Y., FEB. 10, 1895. 



No. 3 



Natural Science News. 



A Weekly Journal Devoted to 

 Natural History. 



FRANK H. LATTIN, Editor and Publisher, 

 ALBION, N. Y. 



Correspondence and Items of interest to the 

 student of any of the various bratichts of the 

 Natural Sciences solicited from all. 



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Albion, Orleans Co., N. Y, 



BOTANY. 



A Brief History of the Subject. 



In the study of Botany one of 

 the first questions is: What is 

 Botany? It is the science of the 

 vegetable kingdom, and includes a 

 knowledge of the forms, organs, 

 structure, growth and uses of 

 plants, together with their history 

 and classification. I have en- 

 deavored in as few words as pos- 

 sible to give a definition of Botany 

 and its uses, and will now proceed 

 to give a brief history of the sub- 

 ject. We will go back to the year 

 371 B. C. when Theophrastus was 

 born, who is claimed to have been 

 the first botanist, he having writ- 

 ten a history of plants in which he 

 described five hundred species. 

 Aristotle, the greatest naturalist of 

 antiquity, also, was familiar with 

 the laws of plant life. 



If we take up the Bible we find 

 in Genesis 1 : 1 1-14: 



'And God said, let the earth 

 bring forth grass, the herb yielding 

 seed, and the fruit tree yielding 

 fruit after his kind, whose seed is 

 in itself, uipon tha earth: and it 

 was so. 



"And the earth brought forth 

 grass, and herb yielding seed after 

 his kind, and the - trees yielding 

 fruit, whose seed was in itself, 

 after his kind, and God saw it was 

 good. 



'And the evening and the morn- 

 ing were the third day." 



Right here we may properly say 

 that with the third day of creation 

 Botany begun, and all through the 

 Bible we find plants mentioned. 



About 23 A. D. Pliny the great 

 Roman naturalist was born, and 

 during his life, gave an account of 

 all the trees, shrubs and plants 

 then known. 



In the year 1707, Carl Linne, or 

 Linneaus, the "Father of Botany" 

 was born at Rashult, Sweden. The 

 Linne family were all passionately 

 fond of Botany, and were said to 

 have taken their name from a great 

 linden tree,, which grew in the vil- 

 lage. It is said that at college he 

 was not very diligent in such stud- 

 ies as Grammar, Theology and 

 Latin: but would rather ramble 

 through the country lanes, so that 

 by his classmates, he was finally 

 called the "Little Botanist." But 

 we find, in the end, that he became 

 a Professor of Botany in the col- 

 lege at Upsala, Sweden. He was 

 but twenty-three years old when 

 lie originated what is known as the 

 Linnean or artificial system of 

 analysis, which is founded solely 

 on characters relating to the organs 

 of fructification, leaving all other 

 natural affinities out of view. This 

 system of analysis, although in- 

 complete, was the fore-runner of 

 what is known as the Natural Sys- 

 tem, which had, for its principal 

 author, a French savant, Laurent 

 de Jussieu. This system of classi- 

 fication, takes for its basis, all 

 those natural affinities and resem- 

 blances of plants, whereby Nature, 

 herself, has distinguished them in- 

 to groups and families. Hence, 

 each member of any natural group 

 resembles the other members: and 

 a fair description of one will serve 

 to a certain extent, for all the rest. 



In 1749, Johamr Goethe, Ger- 

 many's greatest poet, was born, 

 and we learn that he was the first 

 to discover the law of metamor- 

 phoses in plants. By this is meant 

 that the stamens, pistils, corollas, 

 bracts, and so forth, various parts 

 of every plant, are simply modified 

 leaves. From this time on, there 

 have been manv prominent botan- 

 ists, and if I were to give a des- 

 cription of what each lias done for 

 the science, it would fill volumes. 



But before closing this article, I 

 will mention a few names of the 

 botanists of later years. 



It was John Ray of England 

 who divided the Vegetable King- 

 dom into two sub-kingdoms, giving 

 us Phaenogamia or flowering plants 

 and Cryptogamia. flowerless. 



Alphonso Wood was also a 

 prominent botanist he being the 



author of "Botanist and Florist" 

 and numerous other works. Asa 

 Gray is also author of quite a num- 

 ber of works on the same subject. 

 And last but not least we have 

 Chas. Darwin, who made Botany 

 one of his chief studies, and has 

 given us a great number of articles 

 and books on Botany. As a fitting 

 close will give Tennyson's senti- 

 ments on Botany. 



''Flower in the crannied wall, 

 I pluck you out of the crannies; 

 Hold you here, root and all, in my 

 hand. 



Little flowers, but if I could understand 

 What j ou are, root and all, and all in 

 all, 



[ should know what God and man is." 

 W. Gerlack, Jr. . Piqua, O. 



Insect-proof Books. 



In India books have to be care- 

 fully protected against insects. 

 Often a teaspoonful or two of re- 

 fined mineral naptha, or benzine 

 collas, is poured into the crevices 

 of the binding, and then the vol- 

 ume is ensconced in a closely-fit- 

 ting box. to be sprayed over, after 

 awhile, with the best kerosene oil. 

 Another way to make a book, as 

 far as possible, insect-pro.of, is to 

 brush it over with a saturated solu- 

 tion of corrosive sublimate. 



Puff Balls. 



Much attention recently has 

 been given to the question of poi- 

 sonous mushrooms. A few are in- 

 jurious; but the larger number 

 are healthful. Still the fact that a 

 few of the mushrooms, when poi- 

 sonous at all, are extremely dang- 

 erous deters many persons from 

 using anything but the common 

 mushroom so well known. There 

 is one class, however, known as 

 ■•puff-balls," not one of which is 

 poisonous. The larger ones, when 

 cut up in slices and fried as egg- 

 plants, are just as delicious as the 

 common mushroom. They must 

 be taken when entirely fresh, so 

 that the whole of the interior is of 

 a clear white color. In this re- 

 spect they do not differ from the 

 common mushroom, which are by 

 no means wholesome when stale. — 

 Mechan $ Monthly for January. 



