250 PBOGRESS OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. PJoumS, AprTi?ff 
lencite, a small quantity of vitreous base and minute microlites, lie 
distinguished augite, monoclinic, and triclinic feldspar, biotite, mag- 
netite, and nepbeline. A remarkable appearance was the presence of 
crystals having hexagonal and sixsided outlines, which might be taken 
for mica, but which from the results of measurements made of them 
must be regarded as sanidine. The leucite presented fissures in the 
interior of its crystals regularly arranged, like those to be seen in 
crystals artificially formed from solution. — ■ Faper read hefore the 
Vienna Academy, February Mh. 
Two Neil) Species of Sponges of the Family Lophospongice have been 
recorded by MM. J. A. Herklots and W. Marshall. This sponge, 
which has been in the Museum of Leyden for the last three years, has 
been compared by the naturalists mentioned with Hyalonema and 
Euplectella, and is regarded as a new form, under the name of Hyalo- 
thauma Ludekingi. It was found near the Isle of Coram, at a very 
great depth, and it would have been described long since but for 
the ill-health of one of these naturalists. Some of the provisional 
descriptions of Hyalonema Schultzei by M. Semper lead them to 
think he has described their species, but others force them to a dif- 
ferent opinion. Indeed, they say that M. Semper himself, who has 
seen the specimen, can neither affirm nor deny its identity with H. 
Schultzei. The new sponge is of regular form, elongated into a 
pentagonal prism, wider towards the free mouth, attached to the sea- 
bottom by siliceous threads, which form a sort of root. These threads 
are united into a multitude of bundles, which anastomose freely with 
each other, and are continued into the interior of the sponge, there 
constituting the solid framework of the fibrous tissues. The latter are 
different in structure. In the interior a tissue of sjjrong fibres inter- 
poses itself between the longitudinal bundles referred to, and forms the 
walls of large canals. On the exterior there is seen, near the free 
mouth, a tissue of serrated texture, perforated irregularly with large 
lacunae ; these lacunae open into the canals which admit the water, 
and many of them sometimes open into the same canal. In the 
body of the sponge is seen a regular network, with square meshes 
formed of cruciform spicules, in which are placed verticillate spicules 
which form a " whorl." In this firm network may be seen plates of a 
larger tissue ; they are oval in form, and are often disposed in vertical 
rows. A border of serrated spicules surrounds these plates, and all 
the openings of the same plate lead to the same canal. — Archives 
Neerlandaises des Sciences, tome iii., livraison 5. 
The Structure of the Pistil is continued by M. Van Tieghem in the 
number just out of the ^Annales des Sciences ' (Botanical part). The 
paper contains numerous plates, and shall be more fully abstracted in 
our next number. 
The Curves produced in the Movement of Buds is a most interest- 
ing paper just begun by M. Ed. Prillieux in the same number. It 
treats of points inquired into by Herr Hofmeister. 
The Fecundation of Ferns is a paper also in this number, by M. Ed. 
Strasburger. 
