SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
433 
"but are merely evidences of a greater or less tendency to dimorphism, re- 
presenting various stages of development in the zoospores. 5. Also various 
sexual forms of growth may appear in the same species, which are not 
reliable as specific distinctions. 
CHEMISTRY. 
The Chemical Society's Monthly Reports. — These have formed the subject of 
a report which was made at the British Association at Belfast. Professor 
Roscoe brought forward this report. The way in which the Association 
assisted science was by giving donations of funds for particular scientific 
purposes. He had to bring forward a short report on a subject on which 
all chemists were agreed as to its importance, and as to the usefulness of 
the work carried on. Eor some years past — for the last four years — the 
Council of the Association had voted 100/. per annum to aid the Chemical 
Society of London in carrying out a most important work — namely, in 
publishing abstracts of all the papers of interest and importance which were 
published during the year in foreign journals, thus bringing home to English 
chemists to those who had not the opportunity or ability to peruse the 
journals in which the original communications appeared the opportunity of 
obtaining in each month of the year a complete knowledge of what was 
going on elsewhere. This was the last year in which it was proposed to 
ask for a grant of money, and the committee of which he was a member 
had to report to this section, as a matter of form, the result of the work 
which had been done by the money voted by the Association last year at 
Bradford. They had here an instance of the way in which the Associa- 
tion really assisted the progress of science — first, by the prosecution of 
such important determinations as those of which they had just heard so 
clear an account given by Professor Foster, and by this grant of money for 
doing what otherwise would not be done. The report mentioned that the 
work had been continued during the past year, and was conducted by the 
abstractors with care and accuracy. The undoubted success of the under- 
taking was due to those gentlemen who had performed this labour, and to 
whom, therefore, the thanks of all interested in the progress of science were 
due. 
Occurrence of Leucin in the Fresh Juice of the Vetch. — Both leucin and 
tyrosin stand in very intimate relations with the albuminates. Their fre- 
quent occurrence in the body, their appearance in the urine in certain 
diseases, their rapid production in the peptonizing of the albuminates, all go 
to show the importance of these relations. Now, since asparaginic acid 
occurs among the decomposition products of leucin, and since asparagin 
appears during the sprouting of the papilionaceae, and disappears later while 
protein bodies are forming, it occurred to M. Gorup Besanez to examine, for 
leucin, the juice of the common vetch, grown in rich earth and in the dark. 
The juice, freed from albuminates by boiling, was dialysed, the diffusate 
being evaporated till the asparagin crystallised out. The mother liquor, on 
further concentration, deposited a granular substance, which formed crusts 
YOL. XIII. — NO. LIII. F F 
