neglected to examine minutely, on account of the extremely small opening to it, which prevented entrance, except by creeping on the hands and knees, and even then allowed it with great difficulty. One day, however, he succeeded in getting in, and his surprise was great on finding himself in a large vaulted cavern, so high that his hand could not reach the top of it. He advanced a little way, but finding it perfectly dark, and that he was in danger of losing sight of the orifice by which he had entered, he immediately got out again, and went in search of light and assistance. On returning, and making their way again into the cavern, they discovered that it contained a vast number of skeletons, which appeared to be those of hares or rabbits. They were extended on the ground, all placed in a nearly similar manner, and shewing at once that they could not have been brought there by any beasts of prey, as the bones were all perfect, and even the cartilages were preserved; and on of some of them there were even portions of the hair and flesh not decayed.

10. Miraculous Blood spots on Human Food.—Under the influence of certain circumstances, of which it is difficult, if not impossible, now to form any precise idea, there has appeared upon bread, and food of other kinds, spots of a vivid red colour, closely resembling drops of blood. During the siege of Tyre, Alexander was alarmed by the appearance of bloody spots on the soldiers' bread. At a period nearer our own age, in 1510, similar stains were seen upon the consecrated wafers, and thirty-eight unfortunate Jews were accused of having caused, by their sorceries, this phenomenon, and suffered death, by burning, for their supposed sacrilege. In 1819, similar kinds of red spots appeared amongst the inhabitants of Padua and its environs. At the commencement of the month of August in that year, a farmer of Segnaro, named Pittarello, was frightened by seeing drops of blood sprinkled upon his porridge, made of the maize which grew in the neighbourhood of his village. His alarm was greatly increased, when, for many days following, he saw the same red spots appear on all his food-new bread, rice, veal, fish, boiled and roast fowls. The curé was appealed to, that he might exercise his sacred functions to expel the evil spirit which produced these alarming appearances; but prayers were ineffectual, and the neighbours of the unfortunate Pittarello supposed that he was under a celestial malediction. Incited by curiosity, a large number of persons went to Segnaro, and a commission was eventually named to investigate the nature and causes of this phenomenon. M. Sette was appointed to this task. On examining under the microscope these miraculous red spots, he discovered that they were formed by myriads of small bodies, which appeared to be microscopic fungi, and to which he gave the name of zaogalactina imetropha. He succeeded in propagating these minute organic productions, and in a memoir published at Venice in 1824, he gives a detailed history of them. During the year 1848, the same phenomenon appeared at Berlin, and fixed the attention of Ehrenberg. This celebrated micro

grapher has closely studied these red spots, and he believes them to be, not as M. Sette supposes, microscopic fungi, but animalculæ of inferior degree, a monade to which he has given the name of Monas prodigiosa, on account of their extreme smallness. These little beings appear as corpuscles, almost round, of one three-thousandth to one eight-thousandth of a line in length; transparent when separately examined, but in a mass of the colour of blood. M. Ehrenberg calculates, that in the space of a cubic inch there are from 46,656,000,000,000 to 884,836,000,000,000 of these monades.(Medical Times, No. 497, vol. xix., April 1849.)

11. The Oyster.-M. de Quatrefages has recently ascertained that, contrary to the common opinion, the sexes are separate in the oysters. M. Blanchard's observations confirm those of M. de Quatrefages. In his investigations into the Nervous System of Mollusca, he has had occasion to examine a great number of these animals, and in the proper season he has always found the eggs and the spermatozoa isolated in different individuals.-(American Journal of Science and Arts, vol. vii., No. 21, p. 437.)

12. Process of preparing the Spawning Beds by Fishes.-The process of preparing the spawning beds is curious. The two fish come up together to a convenient place, shallow and gravelly. Here they commence digging a trench across the stream, sometimes making it several inches deep. In this the female deposits her eggs or ova; and she having left the bed, the male takes her place and deposits his spawn on the ova of the female. The difference may be, perhaps, easily exemplified by the soft and hard roe of a herring, the former being that of the male, and without this the hard roe or ova of the female fish would be barren. When the male has performed his share of the work, they both make a fresh trench immediately above the former one, thus covering up the spawn in the first trench with the gravel taken out of the second. The same process is repeated till the whole of their spawn is deposited, when the fish gradually work their way down to the salt water to recruit their lost strength and energy.

The spawn is thus left to be hatched in due time, but is sometimes destroyed by floods, which bury it too deep, or sweep it entirely away; at other times it is destroyed by want of water, a dry season reducing the river to so small a size as to leave the beds exposed to the air. The time required to hatch the eggs depends much on the state of the weather; in warm seasons they are hatched much quicker than in cold. The details I have here given are very imperfect; but, perhaps, they may induce those interested in the subject to read a little work published by Mr Young, the result of his observations and experience for many years.-(Field Notes and Tour in Sutherland, by Charles St John, vol. i. p. 55.)

BOTANY.

13. The Distribution of Flowers in a Garden.-Amongst the

pleasures presented to us by the culture of flowering plants, there are few that exceed what we experience from the sight of a multitude of flowers, varying in their colour, form, and size, and in their arrangement upon the stem that supports them. It is probably owing to the admiration bestowed individually upon each, and to the attachment bestowed upon them in consequence of the great care they have required, that care has hitherto not been taken to arrange them in such a manner as to produce the best possible effect upon the eye, not only separately, but collectively. Nothing, therefore, is more common than a defect of proportion observed in the manner in which flowers of the same colour are made to recur in a garden. At one time the eye sees nothing but blue or white, at another it is dazzled by yellow scattered around in profusion; the evil effect of a predominating colour may be further augmented when the flowers are of approximating, but still different shades of colour. For instance, in the spring, we meet with the jonquil of a brilliant yellow, side by side with the pale yellow of the narcissus; in the autumn the Indian pink may be seen next to the China rose and the aster, and dahlias of different red grouped together, &c. Approximations like these produce upon the eye of a person accustomed to judge of the effects of the contrast of colours, sensations that are quite as disagreeable as those experienced by the ear of the musician, when struck by discordant sounds.

The principal rule to be observed in the arrangement of flowers is to place the blue next to the orange, and the violet next to the yellow, whilst red and pink flowers are never seen to greater advantage than when surrounded by verdure and by white flowers; the latter may also be advantageously dispersed among groups formed of blue and orange, and of violet and yellow flowers. For although a clump of white flowers may produce but little effect when seen apart, it cannot be denied that the same flowers must be considered as indispensable to the adornment of a garden when they are seen suitably distributed amongst groups of flowers whose colours have been assorted according to the law of contrast; it will be observed by those who may be desirous of putting in practice the precepts we have been inculcating, that there are periods of the horticultural year when white flowers are not sufficiently multiplied by cultivation to enable us to derive the greatest possible advantage from the flora of our gardens. I will further add, that plants, whose flowers are to produce a contrast, should be of the same size, and, in many cases, the colour of the sand or gravel composing the ground of the walks or beds of a garden, may be made to conduce to the general effect.

In laying down the preceding rules, I do not pretend to assert that an arrangement of colours, different from those mentioned may not please the eye; but I mean to say that, in adhering to them, we may always be certain of producing assemblages of colour conformable to good taste, whilst we should not be equally sure of success in making other arrangements. I shall, however, revert to this point.

I will reserve for a special article the consideration of the number of plants in flower at the same time, which admit of being grouped together, and of those details of execution which would here be out of place. I must, however, reply to the objection that might be made, that the green of the leaves, which serves, as it were, for a ground for the flowers, destroys the effect of the contrast of the latter. Such, however, is not the case, and, to prove this, it is only necessary to fix on a screen of green silk two kinds of flowers, conformably to the arrangement of the coloured stripes, and to look at them at the distance of some ten paces. This admits of a very simple explanation ; for as soon as the eye distinctly and simultaneously sees two colours, the attention is so rivetted that contiguous objects, especially when on a receding plane, and where they are of a sombre colour, and present themselves in a confused manner to the sight, produce but a very feeble impression.(Chemical Reports and Memoirs of the Cavendish Society, p. 207.)

14. The Nutmeg Tree (Myristica officinalis).-Banda can furnish annually 500,000 lb. of nutmegs and 150,000 lb. of mace: this latter is not, as some persons suppose, the flower of the nutmeg, but the immediate internal cover of the brown shining shell, covering the kernel, which is the nutmeg; it is found as a beautifully reticulated scarlet arillus between these and the husk or exterior green skin.

The tree which furnishes these two productions, is one of the most agreeable to the eye, at least I thought so, when, for the first time, I saw a number loaded with fruit at Pondokgede, where they border the large walks of the magnificent garden belonging to the Nestor of our eastern possessions, the worthy M. W. Engelhard. The nutmeg tree attains a height of thirty-five to forty feet; it has some resemblance to our European pear-tree; its leaf is of a deep and shining green. Commencing to bear fruit about its ninth year, the tree produces, during more than half a century, if care be taken to shelter it properly, which is done at Banda, by placing it in plantations of canari trees, or of wild nutmegs, which the inhabitants call pala boeig; these have the same leaf and flower, but they give no fruit.

When the flower of the nutmeg falls, it is replaced by the nut; this requires several months to attain maturity, when it is of the size and the form of an apricot; its skin, of a yellowish-green, opens and displays the nutmeg, covered with its mace, of a beautiful red colour. The average annual produce of a tree is calculated at 5 or 6 lb. of nuts; there are some, however, which give from 15 to 20 lb. Although the nutmeg bears during the greater part of the year, the principal crop is in August, and a second, in November and December. These crops are liable to turn out more or less good. Good nuts are sometimes ill provided with mace, and often, on the contrary, very inferior nuts are accompanied by a superior mace.

The nuts, carefully withdrawn from their green exterior skin, and om the mace, are exposed to the smoke during two or three months pon frames or hurdles, in buildings constructed for the purpose

(Kombuisen), and then deprived of a last interior and very hard shell, an operation which is called afklopping van de noot, in order speedily to be steeped in lime mixed with sea-water. This method of preparing the produce requires the greatest precautions, for it is very delicate, and very easily deteriorated. The mace ought to be thoroughly dried, but by the sun or wind; sometimes the planters, when the season is humid, secretely avail themselves of the smoking frames (rook pavia pavias) to accelerate the operation; but then the mace acquires an inferior colour, and sweats more slowly, when it is exposed during the voyage to the heat at the bottom of the hold.(Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia, vol. iii., No. 1, p. 12.)

15. Cloves of Amboyna.-But that which, above all, has made Amboyna so precious, is the culture of the clove (the flower-buds of the Caryophyllus aromaticus).

In an average year, the crop of cloves may be reckoned at 250,000 or 300,000 lb. There are years, like those of 1819 and 1820, when this quantity has been much surpassed; but then in others, the crops have been less; in 1821, it did not amount to 100,000 lb.(The Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia, vol. iii., No. 1, p. 10.)

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

1. Kosmos. By Alexander Von Humboldt. Translated by Colonel Sabine, F.R.S. Fourth edition, 2 vols. Longmans, and John Murray, The cheapest, most correct, and best translation of the renowned work "Kosmos" we have seen.

London, 1849.

2. A Manual of Botany, being an Introduction to the Study of the Structure, Physiology, and Classification of Plants. By John Hutton Balfour, M.D., Professor of Botany in the University of Edinburgh. Illustrated by numerous Woodcuts. One vol. 8vo. Griffin & Co., London. Glasgow: Griffin & Co., 1849. Although there is a great deficiency of elementary works in Zoology in this country, we rejoice, as botanists, that we possess such Botanical manuals as those of Jussieu, Schleiden, Lindley, Henfrey; and we now add the recently-published excellent Manual of Professor Balfour, which is equal, and in some respects superior, to the other manuals in our language at present in extensive circulation.

3. The Elements of Botany. By M. Advien de Jussieu, Member of the Institute of France, &c., &c. Translated by J. H. Wilson, F.L.S., &c. One vol., pp. 750. Van Voorst, London, 1849. We had much to say of this classical work, but the limits of our Journal do not admit of detail. We can only remark that the translation is good, the additions well selected, the numerous engraved illustrations very creditable to the artist, and the typography beautiful.

4. Introduction to Meteorology. By D. P. Thomson, M.D. One vol. 8vo, pp. 487. Blackwoods, Edinburgh and London, 1849. This meritorious compilation we recommend to the attention of students of Meteorology. The industrious author has made ample use of the Lec