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Mas. AGNES IBBETSON, who Las so long and so successfully studied the nature and economy of vegetation, has recently communicated a paper to the Editor of the Philosophical Magazine, "proving that the embryos of seeds are formed in the root alone." The extreme curiosity of the phenomenon, and its great importance in a botanical point of view, have induced us to present our readers with the following extract; conhdent it will interest those who have not had an opportunity of perusing the whole.

"That time is now arrived, of which I last year promised to give notice, when the seeds are to be discovered mounting in the alburnum vessels from the root. It is

a phenomenon so easily seen, that I cannot help calling on botanists in general to convince themselvesof a fact of such importance to science, and establishing the foun dation (if admitted) of a more perfect knowledge in the formation of plants than we yet possess. It requires no other preparation (to view it well) than merely cutting off a small piece of the outward rind of any tree, then cutting an extremely thin slice adjoining the several cuticles, which, if it is the proper piece (that is, the alburnum vessels) it will be so soft as to cut with the utmost ease. In this specimen, with the naked eye, if held up to the light, but certainly with a small magnifier, the seeds will be seen mounting the tree. I

shall first give a complete account of their proceedings from their first formation in the side roots to their settling in the buds; I shall then answer every objection that has occurred to myself, or been suggested by others, in contradiction to the fact here reported with the same exactness and impartiality as if I were unconnected with the discovery.

but

"When first I viewed these balls just entering the bud, I could not conceive what they were; pursuing them in the right season for several years together, I found that they commenced their course in the radicle, at the termination of the side roots, about the end of January; there they appeared to be first formed in a sort of grass powder, which separated as it advanced further into the root, and soon became very small balls, which afterwards entered the narrow passage of the middle root; here they generally stopped for a time, and then, proceeding across the centre, entered the alburnum vessels in the stem, and mounted to the buds. Suppose the larch, or oak tree, but the first is the most distinguished and clear for viewing the completion of this curious phenomenon, as the shooting of its beautiful red flowers marks best the time of observation. The seeds, having mounted the stem, arrive at a collection of gemmæ, and form a large heap at the middle points of the pith leading up to the buds; here they remain many days, perhaps a week or more, till the vessel of dispersion has formed, and run from the heap opening at each bud; the seed vessel of which remains distended for the reception of the seeds, When this is complete the balls

enter this new-formed vessel one by one, and slide up the cylinder to each pericarp, and such a number of balls are deposited in each seed-vessel as suits the order to which the tree belongs. Thus the seeds disappear from the heap by degrees, and the pericarps, when they have received their proper number, close at bottom, and the vessel of dispersion is soou lost in the increasing part of the plant; but the seeds never enlarge from the time they quit the middle root till they enter the bud.

"I must now observe that it is the heart of the seed only that is formed in the root, that part which afterwards becomes the embryo of the plant. In the wheat and grasses it is so exactly marked, as the heart is before impreg nation, that it is impossible not to be struck with the similitude of the figure. I conclude, therefore, that this part is formed by the immediate assemblage of the fresh blood of the plant, mixing with and imbibing the new sap just proceeding from the earth; may not, therefore, the concoction thus formed, when both juices are in their purest state, and perfectly unmixed with other ingredients, complete that production of animated nature, which no other assemblage of matter could produce, and which is concluded and finished by a thin thread of the line of life passing through each ball at its first formation? When aggre gated into a larger mass, their circle was completed; and the thread which ties them altogether is fixed never to be severed, but, passing with them through all the different habitations, in the side root, centre root, and alburnum vessel in the stem, fixes them at last in the seed

vessel, either incorporating the string with it, as in the lily, or hanging by it, as in the seed of the rose or violet, which seed is afterwards impregnated through this identical string. In the cactus tribe, the balls being thoroughly divided, the string is admirably ken, being very thick in proporton, and so much more woody and sold than the matter of the seed, that it is easily distinguished. The seeds are found in every plant about six weeks or two months preceding flowering time, according to the season at which each plant performs that function. Fir trees rarely begin to show their seeds till the seventh or eighth year of their age, and in other trees rather earlier.”

Mrs. Ibbetson then states her conviction that the embryo of trees is the same in all plants of the same genus, from the indifference in the procedure of the plant when grafted or budded; and suggests this as the real cause that plants will not act in this way in any but their own germs. She then exe

cutes the second part of her promise by presenting answers to the objections that have been suggest ed to this discovery by herself and others.

SIR HUMPHREY DAVY has transmitted to the Royal Society an account of some Experiments and Observations on the Colors used in painting by the ancients. In this paper, he first takes a review of the progress of painting among the Greeks, and then traces it from Greece to Rome. His experiments were made on the coloring matter of paintings found on the walls of Herculaneum and Pompeii, in the baths of Titus and

Livia, and other ruins of ancient Rome. Some of these colors were discovered in vases under the ru ins of the palace of Titus; and were identified with those of the fresco paintings in that palace. Three kinds of red were found in a vase; the first, approaching to orange, was minium; the second a dull red, and the third, a purplish red, were ochres. Another red, found in the fresco paintings, was vermilion. The yellows are ochres, diluted with chalk, and yellow oxide of lead, or massicot. Pieces of deep blue frit were found among the baths of Titus. These consisted of soda, silica, and oxide of copper. All the blues were composed of this compound, and the intensity of their color was reduced with carbonate of lime. The greens are all carbonate of copper, except one ap proaching to olive, which consists of a green earth of Verona. The browns are oxides of iron, and mixtures of iron and manganese. The white consists generally of carbonates of lime, and fine white clays. The ground, on which the paintings are executed, consists of powdered marble cemented with lime, and polished; but neither wax nor animal gluten of any kind was discovered in any of these paintings.

The property of conducting heat possessed by different bodies, which is not less important than curious, was proposed sometime ago as a prize question by the Society of Sciences at Rotterdam; and the prize awarded to Mr. C. G. Boekmann, for his dissertation on that subject. Mr. B. examined eighteen metals and metallic compounds; and found that bismuth

parts with its heat soonest, and iron retains it longest. Mr. B. also examined a great variety of other substances; as stone, earth, glass, wood, coal, wax, phosphorus, &c. besides several fluids.

M. LE PERE has transmitted to the class of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences of the French Institute, a Memoir relative to the ancient communication between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean by the isthmus of Suez. The reporter of this memoir considers the question respecting the communication, which has been agitated for ages, as resolved by this levelling. From this memoir, it appears that the low-water mark of the Mediterraneau is 8 metres and 121 millimetres below the low-water mark, and 9 metres and 907 millimetres below the high-water mark of the Red sea. The total slope of the hill from Cairo to Rosetta, a distance of 252,000 metres, varies by about 8 metres from the lowest to the highest level of the waters. Some points of land and even inhabited places are below the level of both seas, and extensive tracts of country very little above that of the Mediterranean, and much lower than that of the Red sea. Le Pere, and the Council to which this Memoir was submitted, conclude by asserting that the re-opening of the com. munication between the Red sea and the Mediterranean, by means of canals, is quite practicable.

DR. BERZELIUS, professor of Chemistry at Stockholm, has published "an attempt to establish a pure scientific System of Mineralogy by the application of the electro-chemical Theory and the chemi

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cal proportions." The object of this attempt is to shew "that minerals are all real chemical compounds, that every species consists of constituents combined, according to the laws of chemical proportions, and that they are susceptible of an accurate chemical arrangement into classes, orders, genera, and species, according to the nature of the substances of which they are composed. Professor Berzelius proposes to divide minerals into as many families as there are simple known substances, which are about 46. These families he divides into orders, according to the different electro-negative bodies, with which the most electro-positive are combined: as for example, 1. Sulphurets: 2. Carburets: 3. Oxides, &c. then illustrates this arrangement by the following examples. SILVER FAMILY. 1st order: Pure silver. 2d order: Sulphurets. 3d order : Stibiets, consisting of antimonious silver ore and silberspies-glanz. 4th order: Tellurets, comprising the various ores of tellurium. 5th order: Aurets, containing electrum and auriferous silver. order: Hydrargyrets, containing native amalgam. 7th order: Carbonates. Sth order: Muriates. IRON FAMILY. 1st order: Native iron. 2nd order: Sulphurets. 3d order: Carburets, 4th order : Arseniets. 5th order: Tellurets. 6th order: Oxides. 7th order: Sulphates. 8th order: Phosphates. 9th order: Carbonates. 10th order Arseniates. 11th order: Chromates. 12th order: Tungstates. 13th order: Siliciates. 14th order: Tantalates. 15th order: Titaniates. 16th order: Hydrates. FAMILY OF ALUMINIUM.“ 1st order: Sulphates. 2d order:

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