recorded is identical with those of Professor Cope's more elaborate essay. We have no desire for controversy and regard scientific claims as generally speaking not worth contending for, but feel that silence, in the present instance, would place in a false light the object of these investigations, and vitiate the original value of the results of much labor not yet published. The quotation below will serve to justify these remarks, and at the same time bring us back to the more agreeable and legitimate subject of this review.

"This law" (of acceleration)" applied to such groups as have been mentioned, produces a steady upward advance of the complication. The adult differences of the individuals or species being absorbed into the young of succeeding species; these last must necessarily add to them by growth, greater differences which in turn become embryonic, and so on; but when the same law acts upon some series whose individuals alter the shell in old age, precisely the reverse occurs, and a general decline takes place. The old age characteristics in due course of time or structure, become embryonic and finally affect the entire aspect of the higher members of the series."* In other words there are certain degradational characteristics first found in the old age of the shell, which are inherited at earlier periods by species standing higher in the series, just as the adult characteristics are inherited by them in the young. Thus the deg radation and ultimate extinction of groups of animals may be accounted for by the law of acceleration quite as accurately as their rise and progress in organization.

These degradational tendencies bring about in the old age of the individual quite a close resemblance to its own young, † and in the group their inherited influence may be traced to its ultimate results in the peculiar unrolled shells of the Cretaceous Ammonites, which are, form for form, the same as those of the earlier Nautiloids in the older formations. In other respects also the aberrant Ammonoids of the Cretaceous may be shown to be degraded species; in their simpler septa when compared with the normal formed ammonites, having in the adult only the six lobes of the young, and in their ornamentation, and simple, rounded, keeless and channelless whorls.

Thus the retardation of development which is invoked to account for the tendency of species to return to forms analogous with those with which they began; or, in other words, to complete cycles either as a series or in geological time, becomes only another phase of the law of acceleration. The very complete analogy, to say the least, which exists between the life of a group and that of an individual member points very decidedly to some law that governs alike the growth and decline of the individual and the group to which it may belong. The struggle for existence may, and probably does as well as physical circumstances strongly influence the action of this law, but that it has no controlling influence is

"On the Paralellism," etc., p. 232.

First noticed by D'Orbigny. Pal. Francaise. Terr. Cretaces p. 381.

proved, we think, by the fact that degradational or senile tendencies are inherited.

In this connection I would suggest that the Turrillites and other allied spiral shells, will ultimately be found to be the legitimate descendants of the deformed Turrillites described by D'Orbigny from the Lower Lias beds. It is now generally acknowledged by European writers that these forms are discoidal ammonites that have departed from the usual mode of growth common to their species, and instead of revolving always in the same plane the whorl has become slightly assymetrical, and thus begun to form the assymmetrical spiral of the genus Turrillites. This tendency is quite common with the septa of Psiloceras psilonotus and other species, and in the shell, also, but is so faintly expressed that it is difficult to distinguish from the effects of compression. If this and other instances of a similar kind be finally substantiated we have here still an*other application of the law of acceleration to characteristics, which naturalists have been hitherto accustomed to call deformities.

According to the theory of natural selection only favored races can prolong their existence by perpetually inheriting the advantages of their ancestors, and certainly the degradational characteristics as displayed in all the terminal species of the ammonoids cannot be explained in this way. Here also we have the limitation of the cycle of changes or variations, of which a species or form may be supposed to be capable, at least partially accounted for; and as Professor Dawson and others have pointed out, the theory of natural selection makes no provision for such restrictions. Reversion cannot be called upon to explain the return of the Nautiloid forms in the Ammonoids of the Cretaceous, because they show the effect of traceable inherited characteristics continually augmenting in force, and because these are senile to the group, and are no more reversionary than the old age of the individual is a reversion to its own younger state. They are accomplished by methods opposed to the metamorphoses occasioned by the progress of the group in structure and by growth in the individual. They take place by a gradual suppression or atrophy of the adult characteristics in the individual, and in the group, by an unrolling of the closely coiled and deeply involute whorl of the Jurassic Ammonites, and they occupy the polar extreme of structure and life in both cases.

We would remark, in conclusion, that Professor Dawson does not wholly commit himself to the new theory, but regards it as "holding forth the most promising line of investigation" as yet advanced. Though the author of the theory in common with Professor Cope, we cannot refuse to endorse Professor Dawson's judgment as regards this decision also. The law certainly explains much which has been hitherto inexplicable, but until the extent to which it may be modified by physical causes, and perhaps natural selection, be fully understood, an unprejudiced mind cannot consider it as capable of clearing away all our present difficulties. It gives us, perhaps the means of asserting that the plasticity of organs

have certain limits; that variations can arise from natural selection, or physical changes, only when these act in given directions and for a given time, after the expiration of which, whether in the individual or the group, if sudden death do not intervene, all changes must be degradational in character. Physical causes, and the struggle for existence can no longer improve the vitiated organization when it has passed this period. Its death is decreed as certainly as its line of developmental changes must have been before it was born, and whatever agency other laws may have, they can only act with more or less force and velocity in these predetermined paths of progress and decline, or cut them short by the destruction of the organization.-A. HYATT.

THE TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB, which, under the auspices of its President and Nestor, meets at the Herbarium in Columbia College, began with the year to issue its "Bulletin," in monthly numbers of four pages each. The notices and memoranda thus issued relate chiefly to the local. flora of New York, which is the special charge of the Club; but matters of more than local interest are touched upon, making it well worth the attention of our botanists throughout the country. For example, in the February number, Mr. Leggett, the editor, explains the anomaly of Lepidium Virginicum having accumbent cotyledons, contrary to all the rest of the species, showing that what may be termed the petioles of the flat cotyledons, in line with the radicle, and in which the bend is made, are in the position answering to incumbent, and so the cotyledons take the accumbent position by a twist of ninety degrees. The "Bulletin" is furnished, upon application to the editor, 224 East Tenth street, New York, for a dollar a year, or seven copies for five dollars.

FOSSIL PLANTS FROM THE WEST.* This report closes Dr. Hayden's report reviewed by us in March, 1870. By some oversight we confused it with a former paper of Professor Newberry, and thus passed by some of the most important results of the explorations. The first portion is a general review of the geology of North America, and as these government reports, notwithstanding their wide distribution, generally have but few non-scientific readers, we shall republish this for the benefit of our subscribers in some succeeding number.

The chapter on the "Cretaceous Flora" gives a concise summary of the various government expeditions which have made collections of the plants of this period. The conclusions reached are identical with those which we have already quoted in the review referred to above in March, 1869, page 41.

Among the Miocene plants Dr. Newberry finds Onoclea sensibilis, a species undistinguishable either from the living forms of this species or those found in Europe, only on the island of Mull, off the west coast of Scotland. This and the large number of other identical miocene species, lead to the inference that North America and Europe were connected by

* Report on the Cretaceous and Tertiary Plants. By Professor J. S. Newberry.

an intermediate continent. "If this inference should be confirmed by future observations, we should then see how the eocene tropical or subtropical flora of Europe was crowded off the stage by the tropical flora of the miocene, which latter accompanying a depression of temperature, had migrated from America, while the eocene flora had retreated south and east, and is now represented by the living Indo-Australian flora, characterized by its Hakeæ, Dryandreæ, Eucalypti, etc., etc., which form so conspicuous an element in the eocene flora of Europe." Instances in which the miocene flora occurs on the McKenzie River, Disco Island, Iceland, and the Island of Mull are then brought forward to show that this land connection must have occurred to the northward, and that the country was then in possession of a milder climate than now reigns in the same latitude.

In discussing the causes which produced this difference of climate Professor Newberry gives his adherence to none in particular, but thinks that the deflection of the Gulf Stream would be the most natural method and at the same time places an objection in the path of the astronomical theorists, which they will find it difficult to combat. It will be remembered by our readers that many of the geologists of the day account for the former presence of a warm climate in the Arctic region, by supposing that the earth has, in former times, passed through a warmer region in space. This cannot be assumed to be the cause in the present instance; for any cosmical cause, producing a general elevation of temperature on the earth's surface, would have given us a tropical flora on the Upper Missouri, whereas we find in the miocene flora there, as yet no tropical plants."

66

RELATIONS OF THE ROCKS IN THE VICINITY OF BOSTON.* - Professor Shaler regards all the syenites of this vicinity as of sedimentary origin, and rejects the old theory of their Plutonic origin. In this he is supported by the late discoveries of the Eozöon in this vicinity, and by the researches of Professor T. Sterry Hunt, published in the last number of the "American Journal of Arts and Sciences." The section of the rocks in the neighborhood of Quincy is described as consisting of a layer of quartzites "to the north of the Quincy Syenite Hills, a hidden section of about three hundred feet thickness, and the Braintree series of two hundred feet. Another section of the Chesnut Hill Reservoir is also described, composed of Cambridge slates for seven hundred feet, Roxbury conglomerate for ten feet, thirty feet more of slate and conglomerate again extending to the edge of the Charles River flats in Brighton, where they give place to a sandstone.

* Abstract of Some Remarks on the Relations of the Rocks in the Vicinity of Boston. By N. S. Shaler. Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. xiii. Dec. 3, 1869. Pamph., pp. 7.

NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY.

BOTANY.

ON THE FERTILIZATION OF GRASSES. — In gently flowing rivers of tropical America grow many fine aquatic grasses, species of Luziola, Oryza, Leersia, etc. The following note is from my journal under date of December, 1849, when threading in my canoe among the islands of the Trombetas: - "This channel was lined on both sides by a beautiful grass - a species of Luziola - growing in deep water, and standing out of it two or three feet. The large male flowers, of the most delicate pink, streaked with deep purple, and with six long yellow stamens hanging out of them, were disposed in a lax terminal panicle; while the slender green female flowers grew on the bristle-like branches of much smaller panicles springing from the inflated sheaths of the leaves that clothed the stem. As the Indians disturbed the grassy fringe with the movement of their paddles, the pollen fell from the antlers in showers," and would, doubtless, some of it, attain the female flowers disposed for its reception.

A parallel case to the above is that of the common Maize (Zea Mays L.), where the male flowers are borne in a long terminal raceme or panicle, and the female flowers are densely packed on spikes springing from the leaf-axils. Here the male flowers must plainly expand before the pollen contained in their anthers can be shed on the female organs below, whether of the same or of a different plant. That there are frequent cross-marriages in Maize is evidenced by the numerous varieties in cultivation in countries where it is a staple article of food, as in the Andes of Ecuador, where nine kinds, varying in the color of the grain (through white, yellow, and brown, to black), in its size, consistence, and flavor, are commonly cultivated; besides many others less generally known.

In Pharus scaber (H. B. K.) another tall broad-leaved grass, the spikelets stand by twos on the spike-a sessile female spikelet, and a stalked male spikelet.

In the fine forest grasses of the genus Olyra, whereof some species, such as O. micrantha (H. B. K.), rise to ten feet in height, and have lanceolate leaves above three inches broad, and a large terminal panicle, with capillary branches, like those of our Aira cæspitosa, it is the lower flowers that are male, with large innate (not versatile) anthers, and the upper that are female, with two large stigmas, that are either dichotomously divided, or clad with branched hairs, thus exposing a wider surface to the access of the pollen. And as the panicle is often pendulous, many of the male flowers, although placed lower down the axis, are actually suspended over the terminal female flowers.

It is generally to be remarked of declinous grasses, that either the male