56 
ANALYSIS OF CONTINENTAL JOURNALS. 
The isolated crusts varied much in dimensions; the smallest 
scarcely exceeded in size the head of a pin, while the largest 
attained the diameter of a twenty-centime piece. In general 
they were very regularly circular, and formed a well-marked 
prominence on the skin. Their surface, always dry, was 
sometimes smooth, polished, and almost shining, when not 
altered by friction, and at other times irregular, fissured, and 
gritty, when they had been submitted to the repeated contact 
of external agents. When they had attained the dimensions 
of a small lentil they became notably depressed in their 
centre, which was frequently traversed by a small tuft of fine 
hairs; their shape reminded one of a chemise porcelain button. 
Those of small dimensions rarely presented the cupuliform 
aspect, and were in general regularly hemispherical, but then 
the hairs did not pass through them. The colour of these 
crusts varied from a canary-yellow to a sulphur-yellow hue. 
At certain points there were also found a mass of crusts 
of the same nature, but much more extensive, whose dimen¬ 
sions might reach that of a franc or even a two-franc piece. 
The contours of these large crusty plates, so far from being 
exactly circular, were very irregular; their surface was papil- 
lated, and presented here and there some bristly hairs, which 
were generally but little adherent. These plates only showed 
in a confused manner, or not all, the cupuliform aspect. 
When attentively examined, it was easy to see that they were 
formed by the union of a variable number of favi primarily 
distinct and isolated, but which, becoming developed in the 
vicinity of each other, became joined and more or less com¬ 
pletely confounded, so as to form one large crust. 
All these crusts, the smallest as well as the most volumi¬ 
nous, were composed of the same elements; there were spores, 
isolated or united in chaplets, sporophorous tubes of diverse 
forms and dimensions, and numerous mycelium-filaments. 
The abundance of the latter element—which in some prepa¬ 
rations was found to be predominant, and was particularly 
noticeable on the intact surface of the favi—the considerable 
volume of the spores, and their frequently ovoid shape, and 
the frequency of the chaplets, such were the characters of 
the cryptogamic vegetation which authorised me to ally it 
unhesitatingly with the Achorion Schonleinii , and to separate 
it from the TricopJiyton , the spores of which are smaller, more 
commonly spherical, more rarely joined as a chaplet, and in 
which, more especially, the mycelium is relatively rare. 
In the intervals between these crusts, and even to their 
extreme limits, the skin was healthy and supple, showed no 
trace of any alteration, and was covered with shining silky 
