270 
Dr Martius o/i Antediluxiian Plants. 
When steam-heat is employed in a dwelling-house, the dis- 
tilled water is found useful for many domestic purposes ; and/ as 
the saving of fuel, by returning it to the boiler, is much less 
than it is imagined to be, not exceeding one-twelfth of the whole 
eipenditure, the convenience of having this kind of water will be 
a sufficient compensation. 
Within the limit of ah article of this kind, it is impossible to 
enter into all^the minutice of the art of applying heat and con- 
ducting ventilation; but I hope, short as it is, it will afford 
some useful hints, and cause some inquiry to be instituted by 
those who are better able to investigate those important sub- 
jects. 
Art. VIII. — O71 certain Antediluvian Plants susceptible of be- 
ing illustrated by means (f* Species now living within the 
Tropics^ By Dr C. F. P. De Martius. Read at a Meet- 
ing of the Royal Botanical Society of Ratisbon. (Continued 
from page 56.) 
Almost all authors agree in representing the family of 
Palms as having existed among the first vegetables, and as being 
frequently found buried with the others. Nor is it to be doubted, 
that their remains, viz. the stems, fronds and fruits, occur in the 
older coal formation, although they are much less frequent than 
is commonly believed. A fragment of stem, represented by the 
illustrious Count Sternberg.^ in his celebrated work, PI. 5. Fig. 
-1., exhibits the singular structure of palm- wood; and the fruits 
depicted there, PI. 7> Fig. 12., seem to belong to a species of 
cocos or areca. But that later catastrophes have overwhelmed a 
great abundance of palms, is proved, both by the petrified woods, 
ocellated with fasciculi of fibres, and very easily distinguishable 
by them, frequently observed in the East Indies and in Europe, 
and which I have also seen in Brazil ; and by the various i^res- 
sions of fronds in calcareous schistus found in different places in 
the Tyrol, the south of France, and other countries in the vici- 
nity of the sea, as well as on the Continent of Germany. I have 
in my possession an excellent sample of this period, found in the 
sandstone quarries near Herbipolis, being a piece of stem nearly 
