CHEMICAL ACTION. 
223 
dehor mm intyhus, though unknown as a field-crop, sometimes 
decks the margins of our grass-fields with its very lovely sky-blue 
rays. Of late years an artificial clover named Alsike, of North 
European origin, I believe, has become very popular with our 
farmers. 
Besides the grasses already mentioned, there are a few outsiders, 
not much good, perhaps, but some of which skirt our fair meadows 
nevertheless. Bold stragglers are they, which manage to climb over 
the sheepfold, however often they may be cut off, and utterly cast 
out. Foremost among these is the Common Couch, Triticum 
repens. Another showy outcast ranking between the Oat and 
the Holcus, namely, the Tall Oat Grass, Avena elatior of Linnaeus, 
was once thought more highly of, and was even cultivated ; but its 
reputation faded away before the anathema of Sir H. Davy. 
There are also several hungry grasses of the Brome family, and 
the huge hassocks of the Turfy Hair Grasses, Aira ccespitosa, 
sometimes intrude into our moist meadows. It is one of our 
harshest grasses, of no known good, yet inviolably armed. 
Of all the genera of British grasses Panick is the most rare • 
and the rarest of all, the Panicum dactylon, is peculiar to the 
shore-line of Mount's Bay. Of all the spots in Britain's isle, the 
sandy strip between Penzance and Marazion is its chosen habitat, 
and here it was discovered by a Mr. Newton in the time of our 
great naturalist, John Pay. 
CHEMICAL ACTION. 
SYLLABUS OF LECTURE BY MR. A. J. RIDER, F.C.S. 
(Read November 6th, 1879.) 
Matter. Influence of force. Physical and chemical changes. 
Indestructibility of matter. The forces which affect matter con- 
trasted ; their correlation. Chemical changes ; conditions under 
which produced ; phenomena attending them. Typical modes of 
action. Nascent state. Conclusion. 
