THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
433 
dition, in turn, is an important factor in 
the growth of vegetation. 
o o 
new forage plant — Polygonium Sa- 
gHaliae — is being tried at Alliers, France. 
It requires little care, grows to a height of 
six feet in three or four weeks, and its large 
leaves are readily eaten by cattle. A second 
growth quickly follows the first cut- 
ting. A single plant covers more than a 
square yard, and yields over 80 pounds of 
leaves. The plant is a native of the island 
of Saghalien, Japan. 
m 
J, HE best existing map of the moon shows 
32, 856 craters-shaped projections according 
to M. Wilhelm Meyer, and astronomers 
tell us that a hundred thousand are brought 
into view with a telescope of medium power. 
It is not probable that these so-called j 
craters have all been eruptive volcanoes, 
for the size of some of them is opposed to 
this assumption no less than their great 
number. The crater Copernicus, perhaps , 
the most beautiful of all, is a circular wall 
about 54 miles in diameter, rising in one 
place almost perpendicularly to 13,000 
feet, Its origin has not been satisfactorily 
explained. On the other hand, the systems 
of radiations about the crater Tvcho, cover- 
ing half the moon’s surface, may well be 
regarded as the effect of the cooling and 
contraction of the moon from a molten 
state. 
The shell-fish of France are found by 
M. Locard to include 1500 marine and 1250 
land and fresh- water species. In England 
there are only 550 marine and 150 land 
and fresh-water forms. 
Good authority assures us that the for- 
mic acid present in ants imparts to these 
creatures a not unpleasant taste. One 
entomologist in his boyhood prepared a 
mixture of crushed ants with sugar and 
water, which was relished by his companions 
as a substitute for lemonade and a corre- 
spondent of Insect Life mentions a man 
who is in the habit of eating large black 
ants obtained from rotten wood, while 
another man noticed an agreeable acid 
flavor in a piece of pie eaten in the daik 
which subsequently proved to have been 
swarming with little red ants. 
The influence of electricity on vegetation 
has been a subject of experiment by Prof 
Chodat and others, of Geneva, during the 
last two years. In one test a quantity of 
beans was divided into two lots, planted 
in vessels of sawdust, and exposed to exactly 
similar conditions of moisture, warmth and 
light. But one vessel was put under elec- 
trical influence from forty minutes a day 
at first to three or four hours a day a 
little later. The electrified lot showed leaves 
on the fourth day, when no signs of 
them were apparent in the other lot, and 
the difference was increased on the fifth 
sixth and seventh days, when the electrified 
plants had reached considerable size while 
the others were just starting, The stems and 
roots were much more vigourous in the elec- 
trified lot. The experiment confirmed the 
opinion that electricity promotes develop- 
ment and growth in length; but in ultimate 
development of leaves the non-electrified 
plants proved the superior. 
pHYSICISTS insist that the world cannot 
be more than 20,000,000 or 30,000,000 years 
old. Most geologists claim that its age is 
much greater, the calculations of geological 
time varying from a minimum of 3,000,000 
years to a maximum of 1,200,000 years. 
In his American Association paper the 
other day, Prof. C. D. Y alcott estimated 
from the depth of the sedimentary rocks 
that 45,140,000 years have elapsed since 
Archean time, no attempt being made to 
fix the duration of the latter period. He 
believes that the main outlines of the 
North American continent were laid down 
as far back as Archean time. 
