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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
The Nebula of Orion . — Father Secchi has presented to the French 
Academy a drawing of the nebula of Orion, which was lately prepared at 
the Roman College, and which he proposes to publish on his return to Rome. 
Spectrum-analysis of the nebula proves it, like its fellows, to be composed 
essentially of some gaseous compound. 
The Pascal-Newton controversy still continues. Mr. Chasle still contends 
that the documents in his possession are genuine. On the other hand, Sir D. 
Brewster and Mr. Faugere hold that they are forgeries. The arguments of 
Sir David seem invincible, but Mr. Chasle’s most recent communications to 
the Academy show that he is undaunted. The question whether Newton or 
Pascal discovered the law of gravitation cannot, therefore, be regarded as 
definitely decided. 
BOTANY. 
The Moving Corpuscles of Vdllisneria . — In a paper read before the Philoso- 
phical Society of Manchester on the 18th of July, Mr. J. Gr. Lynde describes 
some recent observations made by him with a view to discover the cause 
of the motion of the corpuscles. The result arrived at seems to be that 
cilia are most probably present. Mr. Lynde does not positively assert that 
this is the case, but he contends that it is most probable. After various 
fruitless experiments, he determined to try the effect of polarised light. 
Having produced a dark-blue ground by one of Darker’s selenites, he put 
on a ^-inch object, and examined a portion of the leaf, in which the circu- 
lation was rather sluggish. All over the surface of the cells he perceived 
“ brilliant gold-coloured scintillations which had all the appearance of 
cilia in motion, and repeated observations showed precisely the same phe- 
nomena.” Notwithstanding all that he has seen, he cannot say that he is 
convinced the appearances can be attributed to nothing else but cilia ; it is 
possible they may be due to the presence of active corpuscles — as suggested 
by Mr. Wenham in his paper on the Leaf-cells of Anacharis Alsinastrum, 
published in the Microscopical Journal for 1855 — which corpuscles may be 
Vibrions, described by Dr. Cohn in his u Researches on the Development 
of the Microscopic Algae and Fungi/’ as representing the developmental 
condition of a plant, but it is only by further research that this point 
can be definitely settled. The result of his observations so far appears 
to be that in addition to the wave of light already seen, the separate 
objects causing that wave may now be observed in the manner described. 
"What these objects are is still a matter to be determined, but at present Mr. 
Lynde is inclined to believe them to be cilia on the cell- wall, while at tfip 
same time there are also independent moving corpuscles within the cell ; 
some of these bodies have the appearance of crystals, and in one specimen 
a great number of starch-granules in the cells were observed. 
A Cure for Dry-rot . — The terrible destruction of timber caused by the 
spread of the fungus known as Merulius lachrymans leads us to record any 
suggested mode of preventing the propagation of the fungus. The mode 
most recently recommended is that which Mr. Lunge refers to in a letter 
in the Chemical News. Mr. Lunge thinks that the dry-rot is generally intro- 
duced into houses with the clay which is so often employed for filling the 
