-From the report of a recent lecture by Prof. A. E. Verrill on the construction and arrangement of the new Peabody Museum at Yale College, with especial reference to the zoological department, we learn that the collections are nearly arranged. The first story is devoted to geology and mineralogy, the second to palæontology, and the third to zoology. Prof. Verrill's laboratory is 42 by 22 feet, and Prof. Smith's 36 by 26 feet. They are on the same floor with the collections. The cases in the exhibition rooms are probably superior to those in any museum in this country. Their special merits are, first, tightness, to prevent access of dust and moths; second, transparency, to give the best possible view of the contents, which has been accomplished by the use of the best plate glass both in the sides and ends, and by reducing the woodwork to the smallest size compatible with requisite strength. To make the cases as tight as possible the doors are provided with tongue and groove, with patent locks that bolt the doors at top and bottom. In the zoological department the cases have also been decidedly improved in this respect by the use of sheet-zinc for backs. Another peculiar feature, quite novel, so far as known, is the use of large panes of groundglass, ground on both sides, and set in movable sash, for the central divisions in the alcove cases. This gives an admirable background for the specimens, and also gives increased light in the room. Moreover, such backs are not liable to the unsightly shrinkage cracks so frequently seen in wooden backs.

- Mr. Edwin Bicknell, well known for his skill in practical microscopy, died at Lynn, Mass., March 19th, aged forty-seven years. Mr. Bicknell became interested in work with the microscope about twenty years ago, and his first specimens were prepared at the Portland Society of Natural History, in Maine, his native State. He soon acquired great reputation as a preparer of injected specimens and rock sections; and his examples of these objects have never been surpassed. He succeeded Mr. Glen as microscopist to the Museum of Comparative Zoology, under the late Professor Agassiz, and went to the Penikese School as demonstrator of the microscope. He also took a prominent part in the meetings of the Microscopical Sections of the Boston Society of Natural History, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His connection with Cambridge ceased at the death of Agassiz, and for a while he resided in Salem, Mass., where he had before held a place in the Essex Institute Microscopical Works. His last work was in the illustration by microscopic projections of various scientific lectures. Mr. Bicknell was a laborious student of the theory and history of the microscope, and leaves a very fine library of books, old and new, on his favorite subject.-E. C. BOLLES.

-Catalogus Polyglottus Historia Naturalis a Carolo Gilberto Wheeler, Professore in Universitati Chicagensi, is the title of a folio giving the names in English, Latin, Italian, French, and German of a

number of animals and minerals taken at random. What could have induced any one to spend his time in such utterly unprofitable work as this, we are at a loss to imagine.

Dr. John S. Bowerbank, well known for his researches in the sponges, died at the age of eighty, March 8th. Professor Panceri recently died while lecturing to his class at Naples.

PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES.

April 18th. Mr. C. S.

BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY. Minot made a communication on the primitive homologies of the animal kingdom, based on a new theory of the germinal layers.

May 2d. Mr. S. W. Garman read a paper on the pelvis of Selachians, with especial reference to that of the genera Potamotrygon and Disceus. May 16th. Mr. M. E. Wadsworth remarked on the fusibility of some forms of quartz; on the mineralogy and petrography of Boston and vicinity, and on the granite of North Jay, Me. Mr. Scudder described a fossil cockroach probably from Pennsylvania, and referred to some points hitherto overlooked in the structure of the book-louse.

AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL Society. Mr. - New York, May 7th. J. A. Johnson lectured upon Some Geographical Features of California, and Mr. A. R. Conkling read a paper entitled A Summer's Exploration in the Sierra Nevada.

May 22d. Addresses were made on the Exploration and Civilization of the Interior of Africa and the Suppression of the Slave Trade, by Revs. J. B. Pinney, H. W. Bellows, Prof. A. Crummels, Paul B. Du Chaillu, and Judge Daly.

APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN CLUB. Boston, June 13th. Mr. J. R. Edmands exhibited his improved camera for mountain surveying. Mr. W. H. Pickering showed a new form of plane-table for the same purProf. C. R. Cross described some measurements of heights by pose. the barometer. On June 16th the club joined the Lexington Field and Garden Club in a field-meeting, at Lexington.

Dr.

ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES. Philadelphia, May 22d. Koenig placed on record the occurrence of enstatite associated with corundum from Lincoln County, Georgia, received for examination from Dr. Foote.

Mr. John Ford described a group of eight burial mounds examined by him on the lands of Mr. E. P. Ford, on Coups Creek, Macoupin County, Illinois. The scene presented upon opening the third grave was somewhat startling in character. Four skeletons set within it, two and two; their arms crossed, the knees of one pair pressing sharply against the backs of the other, and the faces of all, like those in the central grave, turned directly towards the east. The enveloping earth

was not so dense nor the quantity so large in proportion as in the other graves, so that most of the upper parts of the skeleton were exposed to view upon lifting the covering slab. In addition to the human remains nothing was found except four large marine shells, known as the Busycon perversum of Linnæus. The position of each of these in relation to the bodies was the same. The canal or smaller end of the shell had been placed in the right hand of each individual, while the larger portion rested in the hollow above the left hip. But more remarkable than this was the fact that within each of the shells had been packed what appeared to be the bones of a child, the skull, which evidently had been crushed before burial, protruding beyond the aperture. It was difficult to resist the conclusion that these infants were sacrificed as offerings to the spirits of the dead whom the living desired to honor. Dr. Leidy remarked that while strolling along the sandy beach at Cape May, N. J., he observed that in a number of places, where the water of hollow beds had sunken away in the sands, a thin, yellowishgreen film colored the surface. A portion of this green matter was scraped up and put in a bottle with sea water. The heavier sand subsided and the green matter remained in suspension, giving the water an olive-green color, reminding one of the colored turbid liquor decanted from a jar of stale preserved olives. The color was suspected to be due to the presence of diatoms, but on microscopic examination it proved to be caused by multitudes of a greenish monad, probably pertaining to the genus Chilomonas. The minute flagellate infusorian is discoid oval in form, with a slight emargination laterally. This emargination seems to indicate the position of the mouth, and from it projected a single delicate flagellum, or thread, scarcely distinguishable. The little creature moved active forward, rolling over from one side to the other, and rapidly vibrating the flagellum. Under a high power the animal appeared transparent and nearly colorless, with two or three balls, of yellowish green hue, and several transparent, colorless, and well-defined globules. The size of the monad ranged from 1-4000 to 1-2400 of an inch in length, but what they lacked in size they made up for in numbers, large patches of the beach being colored by them.

CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. May. By Mr. J. A. Hosmer a skull and stone mortar was presented. They were found on Anacapa Island, at the base of an artificial shell mound, the mound one of a number, and the shells chiefly those of abalone (Haliotis) and (Mytilus) mussel. Fragments of flint were scattered around, evidently left there by arrow-makers. Fossils of leaves from the intercalated clays in the auriferous gravels, near Blue Tent, Nevada County, were presented by D. P. Hughes. Mr. S. B. Christy, of the University of California, read a paper entitled Some Notes on the Mount Diablo Coal Mines, etc. It gave an analysis of the various grades of coal in the Mount Diablo field, and in those of Livermore Valley, California, and Washington Territory.

Mr. R. E. C. Stearns read a memorial sketch of the life and scientific services of the late Col. Ezekiel Jewett, who died at Santa Barbara, California, on the 18th of May, at the age of eighty-six years.

Through inadvertence we omitted to state that the wood-cuts illustrating Prof. Russell's article "Concerning Footprints" in the July number, were kindly loaned by Messrs. Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor, & Co., the publishers of Dana's Manual of Geology, from which the cuts were taken.

Professor E. S. Morse is now in Japan studying the anatomy and development of the Brachiopods. He will be absent from the country until October.

A Manual of the Anatomy of the Invertebrated Animals by Prof. T. H. Huxley will be issued in August, by J. & A. Churchill, London.

SCIENTIFIC SERIALS.1

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND ARTS. —July. Germination of the Genus Megarrhiza, by A. Gray. On the Relations of the Geology of Vermont to that of Berkshire, by J. D. Dana. Characters of Coryphodontidæ, by O. C. Marsh. Characters of Odontornithes, by O. C. Marsh. New and Gigantic Dinosaur, by O. C. Marsh.

THE GEOGRAPHICAL MAGAZINE.― June. The Arctic Expedition, xv. Work of the Auxiliary Sledge Parties. The Seat of War in Asia, Corea, by S. Mossman. The India-Rubber Trees in Brazil, by R. Cross. THE GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. May. A Visit to the Active Volcano of Oshima, by J. Milne. June. - On the Rocks of Newfoundland, by J. Milne, with Critical Notes by A. Murray. Baron C. von Ettinghausen's Theory of the Development of Vegetation on the Earth, by J. S. Gardner.

-

QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF MICROSCOPICAL SCIENCE. — July. Résumé of Recent Contributions to our Knowledge of Fresh-Water Rhizopoda, Part IV., by W. Archer. Notes on the Structure of several Forms of Land Planarians, etc., by H. N. Moseley.

ANNALS AND MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY.-May. Malacological Notes, by R. Garner. On the Final Stages in the Development of the Organs of Flight in the Homomorphic Insecta, by J. Wood-Mason. June. On the Variability of the Species in the Case of Certain Fishes, by V. Fatio. On Ascodictyon, a New Provisional and Anomalous Genus of Palæozoic Fossils, by H. A. Nicholson. On Rupertia Stabilis, a New Sessile Foraminifer from the North Atlantic, by G. C. Wallich. THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF CONCHOLOGY.

the Genus Tulotoma, by A. G. Wetherby.

May. Review of

1 The articles enumerated under this head will be for the most part selected.

THE

AMERICAN NATURALIST.

VOL. XI. - SEPTEMBER, 1877. No. 9.

REPRODUCTION IN FRESH-WATER ALGÆ.

BY BYRON D. HALSTED, M. S.

AMONG the higher forms of vegetable life, two distinct

methods of reproduction have long been observed, namely, by means of seeds and through some outgrowth from the parent plant. The first method is styled the sexual form, because there is involved in the production of a seed the male element, represented by the pollen grain, and the female part called the embryonal vesicle. In fact, it is the blending of the contents of two separate and distinct cells to form a germ, which under favorable circumstances is capable of producing a plant like the one from which it came. Under the second method fall all those forms of continuing the species other than by means of seeds, which are very common in nature and extensively practiced in the art of horticulture. In essence this is nothing more than multiplication by offshoots or by removal of parts of plants, which when naturally or artificially separated will continue to live and grow.

Let us pass by the interesting and more familiar field of sexual and asexual reproduction among Phænogams, and spend a few moments in looking at these same methods as shown to us by the Algae of our fresh-water ponds and streams.

When we have a plant consisting of a single cell, and in the process of time the walls of that cell close in and divide it into two separate and similar cells, each of which soon attains the normal size and divides again in the same manner, we have the clearest illustration of asexual reproduction. The lowest forms of fresh-water Algæ furnish thousands of such examples, where the offshoot and parent plant are not distinguishable because equal in all respects; and in which division of cells results in the multiplication of individuals in the ratio of one to two, as shown in Figure 85, a. In other cases the division is not so simple, for, instead of each dividing into two cells, a single unicellular in

Copyright, 1877, by A. S. PACKARD, JR.