SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
185 
power of wHcli over vegetable colouring 'matters is well known; the alum 
has no bleaching power of its own, but it forms with the colouring matter 
of the wood an almost colourless lake, which has the effect of increasing the 
brilliancy of the pulp. 
Cultivation of Cinchona in India. — It appears from Dr. Anderson’s report 
on the number and distribution of Cinchona plants in the Government 
grounds at Darjeeling on 1st September last, that the cultivation of bark pro- 
gresses. The total number in the various plantations at that date was 
2,075,078 — viz. C, succiniba, 1,118,557; C. Calisaya, 20,354; C. micranthaj 
29,667 ; C. officinalis and vars., 901,408 ; C. Pahudiana, 5,092. 
The Microscopiccd Structure of the Brazil Nut has been lately investigated 
by Professor Dickson, who has resigned the chair of Botany in Trinity 
College, Dublin. 
Microscopic Fungi. — The forms of fungi which are assumed to have rela- 
tion to cholera have formed the subject of a series of papers in the Lancet 
(January 2, 9, and 16). The papers constitute a series of reports by Drs. 
Lewis and Cunningham on the results of their interviews with MM. Dr. 
Bary, Hallier, and Piltenkofer. The conclusions arrived at were rather 
vague and extremely discordant. 
The Vitality of Desmids. — Dr. Wallich, in a note on the Desmidiaceee of 
Greenland, points out the extraordinary vitality of these plants. Botanists 
fancy that the resistance to the conditions of death, which the diatom 
possesses is due to its coat of silex ; but Dr. Wallich gives instances where, 
in Greenland, in the midst of melting ice, even desmids grow abundantly. 
^‘In July,” he says, the specimens were certainly somewhat inferior to 
those of similar species met with in more genial climates. But, otherwise, 
as regards luxuriance of growth, the rate and extent to which the para- 
doxical multiplication by division appeared to be taking place, and the 
brilliance of the green colour of the chlorophyll, there was no inferiority 
whatever. The period of the ye^r was the middle of August, when, during 
two or three hours, about mid-day, the sun’s heat is very great, even in 
these boreal latitudes ; but this only makes the circumstance the more 
wonderful, inasmuch as the temperature, for at least twenty out of the 
twenty-four hoiirs, is very low indeed.” — Monthly Microscopical Journal^ 
rebruaryj., 1869i,. 
The Morplwlogy of Leaves. — In a paper having the'title of the Composite 
...Structure lof Bimple Leaves,” Mr. John Gorham states that he conceives 
. that .a philosophical morphology can be founded on an examination of adult 
leaves,', and of the metamorphosis which certain leaves occasionally undergo. 
The typei of all leaves is, he thinks, to be found in the simple leaf. Of the 
four or five simple leaves described in botanical works, he thinks there are 
two which demand special attention ; these are, the true netted leaf and 
the feather-veined leaf. These two, he believes, enter into the composi- 
tion of almost all compound metamorphosed and simple-lobed leaves. Mr. 
Gorham’s paper is one of considerable length, and although it leaves the 
main pointr— that of development — untouched, it is of much interest. — 
y'l^CjSIonthly. Mici'oscopical Joimial, March, 1869. 
Bacteria in the Protoplasm of Plants. — This fact has been already, as 
pointed out in one of our recent numbers, well established. The question. 
