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CURRENT LITERATURE. 
As some of our readers may not see “ Science” we quote from the issue 
for March 27, 1908, the opening paragraphs from a review by A. F. 
Blakeslee, on the recent work of the Marchals “ Aposporie et Sexualite chez 
les Mousses.” El. and Em. Marchal. Bull. Ac. Roy. Belg. Cl. Sciences, No. 
7 , pp. 765-7S9. 
“ In a paper already reviewed in “ Science,” the Marchals have shown that 
the individual capsules of certain dioecious mosses, contain both male and 
female spores and that regenerations from the leaves, protonemata or from 
other parts of the gametophyte give rise to the same sex as the plant from 
which they were derived. In the present paper they give the results of a 
careful investigation by means of pure cultures of the sexual condition in 
the sporophytes of the dioecious mosses — Bryum caespiticium, Mnium 
hornum and Bryum argenteum. They find that regenerations from the 
capsules or from its stalk, i. e., from any part of the sporophyte, give rise to 
the bisexual protonemata from each of which are developed three types of 
leafy axes: (1) Those apparently male containing only antheridia, (2) 
those obviously hermaphroditic containing both antheridia and archegonia, 
(3) those apparently female containing only archegonia. Shoots with only 
antheridia were most common, those with both antheridia and archegonia 
were considerably less abundant while those with only archegonia were dis- 
tinctly rare. That the three different types of shoots were potentially herma- 
phroditic was shown by regenerations from their leaves. These gave in 
repeated cultures of Bryum caespiticium approximately the same ratio of 
shoots apparently male, hermaphroditic and female as were obtained directly 
by regeneration from the sporophyte and it is concluded that the herma- 
phroditic condition can be thus indefinitely propagated by vegetative 
means.” 
We quote the following from “Science,” April 16, 1909. The article is 
headed “Lieutenant Shackleton’s Antarctic Expedition.” It says “The 
Wellington, New Zealand, correspondent of the London Times has cabled 
some details of the Shackleton Expedition. The frozen glacier-eroded lakes 
near Cape Royds abound in diatoms, rotifers, water bears and infusoria. 
Numbers of rotifer which were examined microscopically had been frozen 
into the ice at temperatures below zero for three years; yet after a few 
minutes’ thawing out they suddenly revived and began eagerly devouring 
the fungus which abounds in these lakes. In some cases only the body, not 
the head, of the rotifer apparently came to life. Several rotifers were similar 
to those already described by Murray as having been found at Spitzbergen, 
Franz Joseph Land. The water bears came to life in the same manner. 
“ On the black lava rocks of Mount Erebus which had absorbed the sun’s 
heat the snow melted at temperatures below zero and at a height of 9000 feet. 
This explains how lichens and similar plant life are enabled to flourish in the 
Antarctic regions.” 
