248 
Notes. 
Mr. C. W. Irish, C E. (“ Kansas City Review”) refutes the 
contention of Mr. Moore that the Romans had colonised Amenc 
and left there traces of their language. 
Captain S. Bent, in the same journal, shows that the plains 
and table-lands of Utah, Nevada, and Arizona owe their 
barrenness to no accidental or remediable cause, but 
table laws of Nature. 
Mount Roraima, in British Guiana, at the height of 5^°0 ^ eet 
above the sea-level, is said to be a perfetf garden of orchids. 
Says Mr. C. C. Massey (“ Light ”), “ It is always difficult to 
say where moral unveracity shades off into the inaccuracy which 
has its origin in defers of intelleaual habit or temperament. 
Dr. A. Bronold (“ Zeitschrift Land Vereins in Bayern ”) finds 
that electricity has a threefold influence upon the growth ot 
plants,— -as an illuminant, as decomposing the constituents of 
the soil, and as ozonising the air. By the jo.nt apphcat.on of 
this triple agency to certain ornamental plants and to straw 
berries he effected growth, strength, and health feeding ^ by 
two or three times that obtained under natural cultivation a 1 g 
size and better development of flowers and fruits, w thout loss 
of flavour and odour; larger seeds, possessing greate J - 
native power ; more complete assimilation of the plant-food in 
the soil, and freedom from vermin. 
Prof. Holdefleiss (“ Der Landwirth ’’) has observed that ^ 
seed, sown in a flower-pot so placed that the soil was exposed to 
the elearic light, germinated two days earlier than similar see 
without the adtion of the-eledtiic light. 
Herr Scholler, in the same journal, testifies to the exceptional 
luxuriance of beets, in a plot of about 2 square metres, which 
had been struck by lightning. 
A APR 1885 
H iv‘{, o 
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