EXTRACTS FROM FOREIGN PERIODICALS. 
S21 
BOTANY. 
5. — Organography of the CistacecB. —A learned and able paper on this 
erder of plants, recently published by M. Edouard Spach, commences in the 
following words:— 
A new treatise on a group composed chiefly of species indigenous to France, 
will doubtless appear superfluous to many; nevertheless, judging even by the 
most recent works, the pretended characters of the Cutacem depend only on ex¬ 
tremely vague and superficial notions. I flatter myself I have supplied this gap 
by a comparative examination of even the most minute details of nearly all the 
known Cistacece^ as well as of many new species—a method, indeed, little 
expeditious, but replete with means for proving the worthlessness of theoretical 
classifications, founded on partial observations. 
The order Cistacece, consists, according to the majority of botanists of the pre¬ 
sent day, of the genera Cistusy Helianikemum, Hudsonia and Lecfiea. It is 
to the species comprised in these four genera that the researches the results of 
which I am about to lay before the reader almost exclusively relate. Altoge¬ 
ther I have reason to believe, that a revision of several of the neighbouring orders, 
especially P^rtulacece^ BixinacecBy TiliaceWy and FlacourtiacecBy would probably 
enrich the first with a number of plants now erroneously classed among the 
others. 
I shall not dwell at all on the duration, bearing, leaves, and inflorescence of 
the CistacecBy having but little to add to what is already known on this subject. 
The vegetation of the Cisti with deciduous leaves, offers a peculiarity which I 
cannot pass over in silence. In these plants the leaves developed on the young 
shoots, during the early months of fine weather, generally fall in the course of 
the summer, when new branches proceed from their axillae. The leaves which 
grow on these stalks are almost invariably of a very different shape from those 
of the primary shoots, and entirely alter the appearance of the plant. The in¬ 
florescence varies greatly in many species; so that characters drawn from the 
number and disposition of the flowers, would in many cases be wholly w^orth- 
less.— Annales des Sciences Naturelles. 
GEOLOGY. 
6. —On the Fossil Bones found near the Jamna, in India. —We have 
already frequently laid before our readers the active researches which the dis¬ 
covery of important fossils has caused in many places in the immense English 
empire in the Indies. We shall report the new facts which transpire on this 
subject, and which are interesting both to the geologist and the zoologist. 
The works undertaken to facilitate the navigation of the Jamna, have led to the 
discovery of numbers of fossil bones, in different states of transformation. Some 
