376 
POPULAR SCIENCE PEYIEW. 
the assistance, then, of this apparatus, he has arrived at the following conclu- 
sions : — 
(1.) That there is no apjDreciahle quantity of carbonic oxide or other com- 
hustihle gases in the atmosphere. 
(2.) That decomposing vegetable matter does not evolve any of these 
gases. > 
(3.) That the same may be said of the gases, &c., emitted by flowers witli 
the greatest perfume. 
(4.) That the leaves of plants never exhale combustible gas either by night 
or day, or in light or darkness. 
(5.) Finally, that when a plant is submitted to the action of the sun, in the 
presence of a considerable quantity of carbonic acid, this acid is absorbed ^vith 
rapidity, but the leaves do not give off the faintest trace of carbonic oxide. 
These experiments have been made upon the mutuated extremities of plants 
in the country ; in M. Corenwinder’s garden on healthy plants ; in fact, 
imder almost every possible condition. INI. Corenwiiider's conclusions are of 
importance from the fact that, though arrived at by a diflerent method of 
experimentalism from that adopted by Boussiugault and Cloez, they fully 
bear out the views of those observers. — Vide Comptcs Bendus, LX. Xo. 3. 
The Fecundation of Marsilea has lately been carefully worked out by Dr. 
Hanstein, in the Berlin Monatsbericht A few hours after the microspores and 
myaspores have escaped into the surrounding water, in the manner formerly 
described by the author, and issued from then’ sporangia, the following 
changes take place. The small androspores become homogeneous and 
plastic, and contract all round the margin ; the mass then is dirided by pbmes 
of segmentation into eight parts, and eventually into thirty-two, the process 
resembling the segmentation of the animal ovum ; and on the completion of 
the segmentation a cell-membrane is formed round each mass. In each of 
these thirty-two cells a spermatozoid is developed, and, in the course of from 
eighteen to twenty-two hours, the developed daughter cells are set free. Each 
spermatozoid consists of a corkscrew-like filament, which possesses a rapid 
whirling motion, and is beset by long cdia. The impregnation of the arche- 
gonium, which in the mean time has been developiug, then takes place. — Vide 
Quarterly Journal of ^Microscopical Science, January. 
A Mevj British triifle is recorded in the January Xo. of the Journal of 
Botany, by Mr. W. G. Smith. This makes the number of species ten instead 
of nine, 'as previously given by the Eev. M. J. Berkeley. The specimens 
examined were found inVhe truffle districts of Somersetshire, where it is not 
imcommon. 
New Anurica/n Station for the Common Heather. — In Sillimaivs Journal, 
Professor Asa Gray states that Professor Lawson, of Dalhousie College, 
Halifax, has had the good fortune to bring to hght a new locality for the 
Calluna vulgaris, from the island of Cape Breton. The flowering specimen 
which Professor Lawson sent was collected on the 30th of Augiist last, in a 
wet springy jflace among spruce stumps, in peaty soil, overlying clay, on the 
farm of Mr. Eobertson, St. Ann’s, Inverness County. He states that it has 
been known there for ten years, having been noticed by a Highlander when 
mowing. Full inquiry into the whole circumstance has led Professor Gray to 
the belief that calluna has not been planted at St. Ann’s, but is a genuine 
