VI. BIBLIOGRAPHY.

1. The London Geological Journal and Record of Discoveries in British and Foreign Paleontology.-No. 1 of this Journal appeared in September, 1846-one year ago: No. 2 was published in February and No. 3 in May, 1847; it was announced for six Nos. in a year, but has encountered some of the delays incident to new periodical works. The three numbers include 132 pages of letter-press. The editor, Mr. Ed. Charlesworth, F.G.S., &c., long known as a distinguished naturalist, avowedly avoids long memoirs and discussions, and prefers a terse orig. inality, including criticisms upon the works of other naturalists. The work is got up in a beautiful style of paper and print, and the plates are of unrivalled finish and elegance. There are 23 plates in these three Nos., and several of them of large size. Hitherto the articles are chiefly paleontological and possess a high degree of interest. They are as follows

No. I.-1. An Alligator and several new mammalia in Hordwell Cliff. Searles Wood, F.G.S.

2. Ichthyosaurus-a new species in Chalk. James Carter, M.R.C.S. 3. Chiton in Magnesian Limestone. Wm. King.

4. Prices of some Fossils. G. A. Mantell, LL.D., F.R.S.

5. Coprolites? in the Crag and London Clay. John Brown, F.G.S. 6. A Reptile or Fish in the chalk of Kent. Toulmin Smith. 7. Mosasaurus with flint in the teeth. Ed. Charlesworth, F.G.S. 8. Miscellanies-Exposition of the plan of the Geological Journal. Ear bones of Whales in the Red Crag. Fossil reindeer. British Fauna. New genus of Mammals, South Carolina. Fossil foraminifera, -soft parts in Chalk and Flint. Fossil mammalia and aves in Museum of Royal College of Surgeons.

Obituary-Miss Ethelred Bennett. Literary Intelligence.

No. II.-1. Large species of Unio in the Wealden of Isle of Wight. G. A. Mantell.

2. Tellina, Monograph of, in the Eocene, &c. Fr. Edwards.

3. Brachiopoda of Wenlock Limestone. Th. Davidson, M.G.S., of France.

4. Belemnite in Oxford clay. R. Owen, F.R.S. Extracts. 5. Fossil Cephalopoda, genus Belemnoteuthis. J. C. Pearce, F.G.S. Miscellanies-Criticism by the Editor. Bibliographical Notices. Extinct Irish Deer. Labors of Agassiz on the Ganoidei. Astacus Phillipsii. Azoic sedimentary strata. Fossil Xanthidea. Pentacrinus, new species. Freshwater strata of Hordwell.

No. III.-1. Fossil Cephalopoda of the Oxford clay. Wm. Cunnington.

2. Hypanthocrinites of the Wenlock Shale. W. A. Lewis, B.A. 3. Tellina-Monograph continued. Fr. Edwards.

4. Brachiopoda. Th. Davidson.

5. Hordwell, fossil and geological phenomena. S. V. Wood, F.G.S., &c.

Miscellanies-Criticisms by the Editor. Bibliographical Notice. Clathrariophyllii, in the Kentish Rag. Lepidodendron with Stigmarian

roots. Birds versus reptiles. Mammalia, new genera, Hordwell Cliff. Bones of Loch Gur. Pentacrinus gracilis, &c. Literary Intelligence.

From the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, we have made frequent citations, and it is replete with valuable matter. The London Geological Journal of Mr. Charlesworth is not a rival, but pursuing an independent course avowedly without submission to the authority of names will, we trust, promote the interests of science;-the editor will avoid, as we hope, all unnecessary personalities, while he pursues fearlessly the course which truth and candor and fidelity ought to prescribe to every editor.

The

2. Darlington's Agricultural Botany.-This work is acknowledged to have been much needed. It brings science into agreeable and intelligible union with that art, in which the great proportion of our people are engaged, and which supplies a large proportion of our wants. peculiar and important relations of botany to medicine, the vegetable kingdom furnishing perhaps two-thirds or three-fourths of the articles of the materia medica, have often been well and fully treated. In agriculture there is a very much closer dependence on botany. It would be a great public benefit if some patron of the useful arts would distrib ute Dr. Darlington's work, gratuitously, by thousands, to the farmers of the author's native state, as a certain work from over the water was distributed through an adjoining state, for the benefit of agriculture.* It should be made a class book in our schools, and children throughout this Union should be taught to rival their neighbors, in having their own regarded as the garden state, rather than to pride themselves on distinctions which are marks of political strife and love of power.

The work is dedicated to the young farmers of the United States, for reasons which the Preface satisfactorily explains; and we find in the same place an important suggestion, that a work expressly devoted to the Botany of the Arts, is yet to be supplied. The writer's favorite authorities are Torrey, Gray, and De Candolle. A glossary is furnished, rendering into plain English all the botanical terms used; there is also an explanation of the abbreviations and references. We have moreover in a synopsis the Linnæan arrangement of the genera treated of, followed by a summary of the groups and orders noticed in the work, after the plan of Gray: the first series, that of flowering plants, occupies in the text 236 pages, and the second, that of flowerless plants, but 10 pages. Following a scientific description of each plant, its origin, history, &c., are the author's own observations, showing its relation to agriculture.

The plants treated of are classified in tables under the following heads; which give at a glance, an idea of the particular subjects and their importance:

1. Plants yielding esculent Roots, Herbage, or Fruits, for Man. 2. Plants yielding Food exclusively or chiefly for Domestic Animals. 3. Plants yielding Condiments or Drinks.

4. Medicinal plants.

* Johnson's Agricultural Chemistry, in New York.

5. Plants employed in the Arts, in Commerce, in Domestic or Rural Economy.

6. Pernicious plants.

7. Plants which are mere weeds.

No one has devoted himself more sedulously than our author, to promote the true interests of agriculture, to inculcate a sense of the dignity and elevated character of the pursuit, and the importance of science to those engaged in it. This is proved by numerous addresses, lectures, and publications, a list of which we here annex.

1. Address, at the Third Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania Agricultural Society, held at Prospect Hill, Philadelphia Co., Oct. 21, 1825. 2. Address to the Chester County Cabinet of Natural Science, at the organization of the Society, March 18, 1826.

3. Florula Cestrica: An Essay towards a Catalogue of the Phænogamous plants, native and naturalized, growing in the vicinity of the Borough of West Chester, Pa. April 28, 1826.

4. Flora Cestrica: An attempt to enumerate and describe the Flowering and Filicoid Plants of Chester County, Pa. April, 1837.

5. An Essay on the Development and Modifications of the External Organs of Plants. Compiled chiefly from the writings of Goethe. March 1, 1839.

6. A Discourse on the Character, Properties, and importance to Man, of the Natural Family of Plants, called Gramineæ, or True Grasses. February 19, 1841.

7. Address to the New Castle County Agricultural Society and Institute, at the Eighth Annual Meeting, held at Wilmington, Del., Sept. 13, 1843.

8. A Lecture on the Study of Botany; read before the Ladies' Botanical Society, at Wilmington, Del. March 2, 1844.

9. Address delivered before the Philadelphia Society for promoting Agriculture, at the Annual Axhibition, October 17, 1844.

10. Address before the Chester County Horticultural Society, at their First Annual Exhibition, in Westchester, Pa. Sept. 11, 1846.

11. Agricultural Botany: An Enumeration and Description of Useful Plants and Weeds, which merit the notice, or require the attention, of American Agriculturists. June, 1847.

12. A Discourse upon Agriculture: at a meeting of citizens of Oxford and vicinity, Chester County, Pa., assembled for the purpose of forming an Agricultural Society, September 4, 1847.

3. Foraminiferes fossiles du bassin tertiaire de Vienne, decrits par ALCIDE D'ORBIGNY. 4to, with numerous plates. Paris, 1846.-When it was asserted, many years since, by Lamarck, that more had been contributed to the formation of the earth's crust by microscopic shells, than by whales, mammoths and hippopotami, comparatively little was known as to the real extent of the labors of the minute but beautiful beings called Foraminifera by d'Orbigny, and Polythalamia by Ehrenberg. Thanks to the labors of the eminent naturalists just named, the immense importance of these minute creatures as architects of the earth's crust is now generally known. D'Orbigny in particular has devoted almost a lifetime to their study, and until Ehrenberg investigated the still more minute forms of this class, the former naturalist was almost the only worker in this field.

To d'Orbigny we are indebted for the first scientific classification of these bodies;* for a beautiful series of plaster models of them which have made their curious forms familiar to naturalists; and for several important memoirs, not only upon the living species, but upon the peculiar forms belonging to the chalk and other strata.S

The work whose title stands at the head of this notice, is the last contribution made by this indefatigable author to his favorite department of science. It is a beautiful quarto volume, with more than 300 pages of text, and 21 elegant and well filled plates. The text is given in both the German and French languages, and the execution of the whole volume is worthy of the imperial auspices under which it was published.

The Chevalier de Hauer having made an immense collection of the Foraminifera from the tertiary deposits of Austria, prevailed upon M. d'Orbigny to undertake their scientific study, and the Emperor of Austria liberally defrayed the expense of the publication of the work, to the preparation of which the author devoted not less than two years. This work is not one of merely local interest. No one familiar with the subject, who looks upon its plates, can fail to be struck with the resemblance which many of the forms bear to the fossils which are accumulated in such immense quantity in the tertiary beds beneath Charleston, S. C., and which are scarcely less abundant in the tertiary of Virginia.

This work on the Austrian forms will be indispensable to all who would study the species belonging to deposits of the same age in other localities. A very valuable portion of the work is an introduction giving a complete exposition of the present views of the author concerning the classification of the Foraminifera, to illustrate which, figures of every genus now known are given. Of high interest also are the author's general paleontological remarks. Commencing with the carbonif erous epoch in which the first Foraminifers occur under the form of the genus Fusulina, a detailed statement is given of the successive additions of genera and species during the different epochs, up to the present time. It appears from the data hitherto obtained, that the number of genera and species in the different periods was as follows:

It appears too, that certain genera are peculiar to certain formations, although some of those which accompanied them may also occur in

Annales des Sciences Naturelles, Janvier, 1826.

Complete sets are for sale at Rue Louis-le-Grand, No. 5, Paris.
Foraminiferes de Cuba et des Antilles, 1839.

§ Foraminifères de la Craie blanche, Mem. de la Soc. Geol. de France, 1839. Recent borings made for an Artesian well at Ft. Sumpter, in Charleston harbor, have reached the Polythalamia beds which were first detected in boring an Artesian well in the city of Charleston. An abundant supply of the marls crowded with beautiful microscopic forms in a perfect state of preservation, has been sent to us for examination, by Capt. A. H. Bowman, of the U. S. Engineers.

For a notice of American Fusulina limestones, see this Journal, vol. ii, ii Ser.,

p. 293.

more recent deposits. The value, therefore, of these minute medals of creation in the determination of the age of strata is fully established.

Upon this point D'Orbigny remarks, "that after having devoted twenty years to the study of the Foraminifers he has become fully convinced that they can in all cases be used to determine with certainty the age of a geological formation, if in their comparison there is used that precision of observation which is indispensable to every conscientious labor in zoology or comparative anatomy." Even where it may be the easiest method to determine the age of a stratum by means of the mollusks and other large fossils which it may contain, the accompanying microscopic forms, which in general are far more numerous, should not be neglected. The business of the geologist is not merely to identify strata, but to give a comprehensive and philosophical view of all the phenomena of the epoch under examination, and surely none can be more wonderful than those connected with the labors of those Lilliputian chemists, who little by little have separated from the ocean waters, organized masses of carbonate of lime or silica, which play no inconsiderable part in the formation of our present continents.

In our American strata the Foraminifera are very abundant; the borings of every Artesian well made through the cretaceous or tertiary strata of the southern states, afford a rich supply of these elegant forms. Beautiful living species occur along our coast, but are rare along our sandy shores, in comparison with the immense profusion in which they occur near the Gulf Stream. From a recent examination of soundings taken at depths of about 100 fathoms and at various points near the Gulf Stream, it appears that the Foraminifers form along the course of this ocean current a perfect milky-way of organic life, whose nebulæ however are easily resolved by the microscope.

*

While we close this article by recommending the various works by M. d'Orbigny as indispensable to all who would pursue this branch of microscopic paleontology, we would also invite attention to an interesting memoir by Dr. Mantell, on the Fossil Remains of the soft parts of Foraminifera in English Chalk and Flint, and to another by W. C. Williamson, Esq., on some of the Microscopical Objects found in the Mud of the Levant. Both of these memoirs are valuable contributions to our knowledge of the minute workers in lime and silica, and other vast additions may be hoped for in Ehrenberg's long expected volume, which is to give the results of his comparison of the microscopic beings, recent and fossil of all parts of the world. J. W. B.

4. Lexicon Scientiarum-a Dictionary of Terms used in the various branches of Anatomy, Astronomy, Botany, Geology, Geometry, Hygiene, Mineralogy, Natural Philosophy, Physiology, Zoology, &c., for the use of all who read or study in College, School, or Private Life. By HENRY MCMURTRIE, M.D., &c., Prof. of Anatomy, Physiology and

For these soundings we are indebted to A. D. Bache, Esq., Superintendant of the U. S. Coast survey. The soundings abound in many new and interesting organic forms, a memoir upon which is now in the course of preparation. t Phil. Trans., Part IV. 1846.

On some of the Microscopic Objects in the Mud of the Levant, and other deposits, with remarks on the mode of formation of Calcareous and Infusorial Siliceous Rocks, by Wm. C. Williamson, Esq. Manchester, 1847.