T is surprising that so little appears to be known amongst botanists and others regarding our British grasses. Even those who profess to be botanically inclined shun this part of the science as a kind of bugbear. It is quite true they recognize a grass when it is seen, by certain outward signs; beyond this they decline to proceed any further. I confess for my part, if any portion of my herbarium interests me more than another, it is the dried grasses, of which I now possess many hundreds of both species and varieties. Again, why so many persons take a deep interest in pteridology and neglect all other departments of botany is to me a mystery. It is for the purpose of inducing some of my young friends, for their own sake, to begin to look more closely into our grasses, that I write this short paper. If I can persuade only one student to commence, I shall not have laboured in vain; for a little thought will convince every unprejudiced person that the supposed difficulty is a mere myth.

Most country people will point out one or all of the following British grasses, if the common English name only is used. Common ray, or as usually pronounced, rye-grass (Lolium perenne); silvery oatgrass (Arrhenatherum); and common meadow soft grass (Holcus lanatus).

Suppose you have the last-named grass on your study table, and are wishful to learn something about it. We recommend these grasses, because the floral parts, being tolerably large, can be studied without a microscope. This grass is exceedingly common, and often gives a peculiar purplish tint to No. 133.

"Florets mostly perfect, one, two, or more imbri. cated on a common axis, or rachis, situated within an involucre, consisting of one or two glumes. Perianth glumaceous, the fertile florets generally consisting of two dissimilar glumellas," &c.

This seems enough to terrify any one; you lay the book down in despair, and declare you will never again study the grasses. Let us calmly look it over and see what we can do. Glumes and glumellas certainly look more formidable in print than they are in reality. On this occasion we wish you to dissect the specimen without the aid of any illustrations> but merely by the simple description here given. Next month we will again take up the subject, and, by means of two or three small engravings, try to throw a charm around the subject, and fill it with interest to all our readers.

Now take from the flowering head, which is named a panicle, a flower; by separating them with a pin you will easily perceive what you suppose bears a close resemblance to a perfect flower, containing stamens and pistil. A caution is here needed. Some parts of the panicle may not be mature, i.e., the flowers are undeveloped. Search on; you will soon find a perfect "floret."

These florets are often named "spikelets."

We presume you are tolerably conversant with the formation of a flower, such as the buttercup or wild rose. If so, you are aware that on the outside, supporting all the other parts, and intended, espe cially when in bud, to cover up and protect the more tender organs, is the "calyx," or cup, each division of which is named "sepal." The second ring of floral organs, in the rose, for example, is

B

called "corolla"; this is the gaily-coloured and attractive portion of the flower; its divisions are named "petals." In our next paper, if you do not know these organs, they will be explained in a homeiy, simple manner, so that you cannot afterwards mistake them.

But in the "spikelet" of the meadow soft grass, now under examination, these organs, although present, are altered so much in appearance that you could not recognize them as the calyx and corolla, or what you would call by that name in flowering plants. Thus, on the outside, at the base, are two small, purplish, boat-shaped, bract-like organs, with three veins running up each; these correspond to the "calyx," but are called "glumes"; then next to these are the two "glumellas," or "corolla." The latter are green, therefore easily recognized; they are also much smaller in size than the glumes, which (glumes) in this grass are almost transparent as a piece of glass, so that the glumellas can be seen through them. The "perianth," mentioned above, is applied to both the calyx and corolla, when it is difficult to distinguish one from the other; thus the glumes and glumellas are the protective organs of the flowers in grasses, or the perianth. Another name applied to the glumella in some botanical works is the "palea."

In some of the spikelets you will detect both stamens and pistil; in others only the stamens, or pistil, are present. The stigma, or the upper part of the pistil, is a very pretty, feathery appendage; also the anthers, or the head of the stamens, containing the pollen, or fertilizing dust, are very elegant, suspended on a most delicate stalk; but these parts shall be more fully explained shortly.

I hope in this short lesson we understand some little about the formation of the grass flower,sufficient to stimulate us to know more, and enough to persuade us that there no real difficulties whatever to those who are determined to be masters of the subject.

PAPUANS IN AMERICA.

R.

HAVING long taken an interest in American

archæology, allow me to call the attention

of your readers to traces which I think I have discovered of the existence of certain tribes of Papuans in America. This is in itself by no means improbable, since there is every reason to believe that both the civilized races and the Californian Indians (at least) were of Polynesian origin, and reached America through the Polynesian archipelagos. We know from Williams, Wallace, Pickering, Earl,, &c., that the Papuans were the aborigines of a

large portion of Western Polynesia, and possessed (at least in Fiji) admirable sea-going canoes; I am, therefore, justified in suggesting that parties of them extend further to the east, and reached America in early ages through Eastern Polynesia. Dr. Pickering thinks that stories of "black aborigines" in America may be referred to Malay Polynesians, but Papuans would answer much more closely to the description. Helps tells us that the Spaniards, when they first discovered Panama under Vasco Nuñez, found a race of black men, supposed to be shipwrecked negroes, in Darien, living distinct from the other races. The Spaniards appear to have allied themselves with them in their contests with the Indians of the country. Some of them built homes in trees as the Papuans and Cambodians do. † In Brazil we find a native tribe of Indians-the Cafutos-still existing, with negroid features and wiry Papuan hair. These people are ignorantly considered to be a cross between negroes and Indians, but are, I believe, pure Papuans. A singular resemblance between the customs of Fiji and the South American Indians is observable in the method of manufacturing an intoxicating drink by chewing. This drink is called "kava" in Polynesia. The Yagnas of Brazil have an identical method, thus described by a recent missionary: §— "The process of manufacturing masáta (a drink commonly patronized by the Indians in Ecuador, Nueva Granada, and Venezuela) is certainly not calculated to enhance one's relish for it. A quantity of yuca is scraped and thrown into a number of jars, each capable of holding from ten to fifteen gallons, and then a bevy of females-in point of fact, all hands-sit upon the ground and masticate the root, throwing each mouthful into the jars. In three days the milky liquor ferments, has an agreeable acid taste, and, if imbibed in excess, intoxicates." This method exactly agrees with the Fijian one. It seems hardly probable that this singular style of brewing was invented in two distinct localitiesi. e. in Polynesia and South America.

It seems to me evident, from the descriptions given of the black and ferocious Charruas or Charruan Indians of Paraguay, whose hand was against every other Indian tribe, and who were finally exterminated by the President of Uruguay in 1831, that they were also evincing the peculiar characteristic of the Papuan race-which has proved fatal to them in their contest with the Malays-i. e., that

See his "History of Spanish Conquest in America," vol. i. p. 360. + Ibid., vol. i. p. 421; also Earl's "Papuans," pp. 53, 115; and Mouhot's "Cambodia," p. 238.

See "The Golden Americas," p. 180. Ward & Lock,

London.

See Mr. Clough's "Journal of Travels on the Amazon," in The South American Missionary Magazine, June, 1875, p. 199.

insubordinate and fierce personal independence which prevents them from obeying a chief or allying themselves with others for self-defence.**

If the attention of ethnologists and archæologists were once drawn to the importance of detecting Papuan tribes in aboriginal America, great light might, I think, be thrown upon the origin of the American races and of the singular civilization which once flourished in the New World.

The Papuan has, as Wallace tells us repeatedly, a higher intellectual capacity and "feeling for art' than the Malay. †

Pickering calls the Fijians "a far more ingenious people than the (Malay) Polynesians."‡

May it not be that we owe some of the great monuments of America to an admixture of Papuan blood? Herrera (quoted by Stephens, p. 533) says that the Indians of Yucatan (Mayas?) wore their hair in tresses of spiral curls at the time of the conquest, as the Papuans still do, and some of the figures sculptured at Palenque present the same peculiarity.

It is an interesting fact that the aboriginal negroid or Papuan races still inhabit the interior of Indo-China) to the languages of which the dialects of the Central American races have recently been discovered by Mr. Hyde Clarke to be closely allied, § and that Buddha is commonly depicted in China and India with negroid features-his mother Maia (or Maya) being of Papuan race, i. e. a Moy.

Civilization may have reached a far higher development amongst the Papuan races than we are aware of, and we may owe more to this despised race than we generally suppose.

FRANCIS A. ALLEN.

that these men were not microscopists, they did not look upon the microscope as a superior kind of peepshow, for which pretty slides were to be prepared, like slides for a magic-lantern. The proper use of a microscope is to enable us to examine and study objects too minute to be visible to the unassisted eye, and not to look at arranged diatoms, butterfly scales, and crickets' gizzards. Our opinion would be small indeed of an entomologist or conchologist who arranged his specimens in groups of flowers or geometrical patterns, and, instead of employing a scientific arrangement, only studied how to make his cabinet look pretty. The "microscopist," however, delights in a slide of arranged diatoms, on which fresh-water and marine forms, fossil and recent, rare species from the Pacific Islands and those from the nearest wayside ditch, are arranged so as to form a star or some intricate geometric pattern. I do not object to the selection or even arrangement of diatoms when, as it frequently happens, we can only obtain them mixed with sand and other débris; and if few in number this method places many forms together, and enables us to detect any variations that the species may be subject to. It has also another and a greater advantage to the manipulator, who whilst picking out sees the form under various aspects. Another kind of arrangement, viz., one on which some fifty or more species from the same gathering are placed together, is also useful, as showing the number of species to be found in the same habitat; but butterfly scales arranged as flowers (with, perhaps, diatom valves for centres) cannot be of the slightest scientific value. All that can be said in their favour is, that they show considerable manipulative skill. I must also protest against the term "microscopist," or "microscopy": there is no such science. One may study the minute forms of animal or vegetable life, or may trace the minute structure of tissues of the larger forms, but these are departments of zoology, botany, and histology; or the microscope may be used for investigating the forms and optical properties of crystals, but that study is crystallography. We have clearly shown that there is no such science as microscopy (unless the collecting and looking at pretty objects can be called so). It would seem absurd to call the study of the stellar worlds telescopy, or the student a telescopist, but these terms would really not be more so than microscopy or microscopist. I would urge all those who possess a microscope to use it for the purpose of investigation (it matters but little what department they take up), and follow the example of such men as Beale, Drysdale, Dallinger, and several of the contributors to this periodical. Every one does not possess the skill of preparing slides equal to those sold by the opticians, but it does not require much skill to dissect an insect, and see the relation

that various parts bear to each other. Suppose, for example, he possess a properly-prepared slide of the gizzard of the cricket or the spinnerets of a spider, it would be a matter of little difficulty to dissect a cricket or spider, and see how those organs are connected with other portions of the insect.

All of us who have exhibited our slides and instru ments at what are called scientific soirées have been struck with the want of interest shown by the public in the objects exhibited, and by the singular comparisons made use of. I have heard a section of an injected tongue of a cat compared to a map of England, and a valve of Heliopelta Metii shown with black ground illumination, to the top of a thimble. This want of appreciation may be easily understood when we consider how small a portion of an object even with a low power is seen (about of an inch), and, as is often the case, the exhibitor, who has probably purchased the object, can give no information as to what is seen in the instrument.

The inventor of the microscope will probably never be discovered, and perhaps no one could ever claim that merit. The magnifying property of spheroidal transparent substances was no doubt discovered and utilized many thousands of years ago, and it has been stated that a convex lens was found in the ruins of Nineveh. It is, however, only in recent times that we have any authentic records of the microscope. Dr. Brewster, in his Treatise on Microscopes," mentions that "Zacharias Jansen presented one to Prince Maurice, which in 1617 came into the possession of Cornelius Drebbel, of Alkmaar, who then resided in London as mathematician to James I., in which place he made microscopes, and passed them off as his own invention. These instruments were said to be 6 ft. in length, and consisted of a tube of gilt copper 1 in. in diameter, supported by thin brass pillars in the shape of dolphins on a base of ebony, which was adapted to hold the object to be examined. Nothing, however, is known of their internal construction; they were probably nothing more than telescopes con. verted into compound microscopes." Viviani, the author of a Life of Galileo, says that this great man was led to the discovery of the microscope from that of the telescope, and that in 1612 he sent one to Sigismund, king of Poland. The invention of the compound microscope is, however, usually attributed to Zacharias Jansen, or Zansz, spectacle-maker, of Middelburg, in Holland, about the year 1590.

About the middle of the seventeenth century we come to a period when the learned men of the time turned their attention to the construction and improvement of the microscope, and the early volumes of the "Transactions of the Royal Society" frequently contain papers on the instrument and the discoveries made therewith.

In 1673 the great Leeuwenhoek contributes his

first papers to the "Philosophical Transactions" but before giving a short résumé of his labours it may perhaps be desirable to form some idea of the kind of instrument he used. Henry Baker, F.R.S., in his work on the "Microscope," edit. 1753, gives figures and a description of one of Leeuwenhoek's microscopes. At page 434 he says:-"Though Mr. Leeuwenhoek's Microscopes are much talked of very few People are acquainted with their Structure and Apparatus, no Figure of them that I remember having ever been made publick: 'tis therefore hoped the Curious will be pleased to see a Drawing of them taken with great Exactness from those in the Repository of the Royal Society, which are all alike in Form and differ very little in Size from this Drawing or from one another." "> *

"The flat Part, a, fig. 1, is composed of two thin Silver Plates, fastened together by little Rivets, b, b, b, b, b, b. Between these Plates a very small double convex Glass is let into a Socket, and a Hole is drilled in each Plate for the Eye to look through at c. A Limb of Silver, d, is fastened to the Plate on this side by a screw, e, which goes through them both. Another Part of this Limb, joined to it at right Angles, passes under the Plates, and comes out on the other side at ƒ, fig. 2; through this runs directly upwards a long, finethreaded screw, g, which turns in and raises or lowers the Stage, h, whereon a coarse, rugged Pin, ¿, for the Object to be fastened to, is turned about by a little Handle, k; and this Stage, with the Pin upon it, is removed farther from the magnifying

Leeuwenhoek bequeathed to the Royal Society a small cabinet containing twenty-six microscopes and objects, of which a description was given by Martin Folkes, Esq., in No. 390 of the "Philosophical Transactions."

Lens, or admitted nearer to it, by a little Screw, 7, that, passing through the Stage horizontally, and bearing against the Back of the Instrument, thrusts it farther off when there is occasion. The End of the long Screw, g, comes through the Stage at m, where it turns round, but acts not there as a Screw, having no Threads that reach so high.

These microscopes are plain and simple in their Contrivance. All the Parts are Silver fashioned by Mr. Leeuwenhoek's own Hand; and the Glasses, which are excellent, were ground and set by himself. He glued one, or at most two, Objects on the point of the Pin belonging to each microscope, and carefully preserved them there; so that each Instrument, being devoted to one or two Objects only, could be applied to nothing else. This Method induced him to make a Microscope with a Glass adapted to almost every Object, till he had got some hundreds of them, as he says himself in the 2nd vol. of his Works, page 230, Mihi quidem sunt centum centumque Microscopia, &c. All this Trouble and Expence is now saved by a Set of Glasses, to be shifted with great Ease, as the Subject to be examined may require.

"The magnifying Powers of these Glasses come short of some now made, but are fully sufficient for most Purposes. Of the 26 Microscopes I examined, one magnifies the Diameter of an Object 160; one, 133; one, 114; three, 100; three, 89; eight, 80; two, 72; three, 66; two, 57; one, 53; and one, 40 times."

These instruments, we need scarcely observe, were much inferior to the cheapest English or continental microscopes of the present day, and it is a matter of surprise that so much really good work could be accomplished by tools of such inferior quality. Of course a very large portion of the microscopic Fauna and Flora with which we are now acquainted was totally unknown to the microscopic workers of that period; Desmids and Diatoms could not be, or at least were not, detected by such aids as those just described.

We now proceed to give a short résumé of the work accomplished by the "Great Leeuwenhoek."

In the Preface to his "Select Works, containing his Microscopical Discoveries," he remarks, that "I have heard that many persons dispute the truth of what I advance in my writings, saying that my narrations concerning animalcules, or minute living creatures, are merely my own inventions. And it seems some persons in France have even ventured to assert that those are not in truth living creatures which I describe as discoverable to our sight, and alledge that, after water has been boiled, those particles in it which I pronounce to be animalcules will be still observed to move. For my own part, I will not scruple to assert that I can place before my eye the smallest species of those animalcules concerning which I now write, and can as plainly see them

endued with life as with the naked eye we behold small flies or gnats sporting in the open air, though these large animalcules are more than a million of degrees less than a large grain of sand. For I not only behold their motions in all directions, but I also see them turn about, remain still, and sometimes expire; and the larger kinds of them I as plainly perceive running along as we do mice with the naked eye. Nay, I see some of them open their mouths, and move the organs and parts within them; and I have discovered hairs at the mouths of some of these species, though they were some thousand degrees less than a grain of sand."*

Leeuwenhoek means that the solid contents of a grain of sand would be a thousand times greater than the animalcule, and not that the animalcule was a thousand diameters less than a grain of fine sand. This is rendered evident by his remarks a little further on: he says,—“In examining the intestines of flies and other insects by the microscope, I have discovered vessels conveying the blood and juices, the smallest ramifications or branches whereof appear to me more than 200,000 times less than a hair of my beard." Supposing the hair to be the of an inch in diameter, the highest magnifying power at his command would not have enabled him to have discerned vessels only the 2 part of the of an inch (1000000 of an inch) if diameters were meant.

His plan of obtaining the size of a minute object is worth transcribing :-"I have a plate of copper with many lines engraved on it, and divided into a number of small equal parts. I then carefully observe how many of these parts one hair taken from my beard and seen through the microscope appears to cover. Supposing that the diameter of this hair appears equal to fifty of those parts, then with the point of a needle I trace on the copper a line of the same size by the naked eye as is equal to one of the small veins or vessels in a fly† seen through the microscope, and I find nine of those small veins so traced with a needle, when placed close together, are the fiftieth part of the diameter of the hair. If, then, 450 diameters of those small veins which I most plainly see in a fly are no more than equal to the diameter of one hair taken from my beard, it follows by the rules of arithmetic‡ that one of such hairs is more than 200,000 times larger than those very small blood-vessels in a fly." (To be continued.)

* The grain of sand he afterwards describes as being of the kind called glass-grinder's sand.

+ Leeuwenhoek probably saw the tracheal tubes. Now, the area of circles being in proportion to the squares of their diameters, the proposition may be thus demonstrated:

450 450

22500

1800

202,500