the next day; but this was unknown to the messenger. He had seen her travelling carriage at the convent gate when she gave him the letter. That night her man did not succeed in getting into Fincer's house, but the next morning he managed to enter it in spite of the porter's vigilance. Mademoiselle de L remained meanwhile in terror and despair. it vacant. No servant was there but his own valet, who appeared before him trembling; but Patrick's suspicions had not fallen on him. He asked the man no questions, but entered at once into his own chamber. He seemed almost beside himself. The valet, after doing all in his power for his relief, did not dare to oppose him when he spoke of going at once to the The messenger went up the stair- post-house, taking horses, and followcase, and entered an anteroom. It led ing Mademoiselle de Lupon her to Sara's chamber. There he saw road to Germany; he only begged his Patrick sitting in a chair, broken down master to let him make all enquiries, by loss of food and sleep. He seemed assuring him of his zeal. But his real at first to take no notice of the sigus object was to get away before his supthat the man made him. But the mo- pression of the letters should be found ment he came out to him and heard out. First, however, he went to Finfrom whom he came, he seized the let-cer's house, and heard what had octer. Mademoiselle de L― had never curred there. Then he passed the lost her place in his affections. had thought her safe and tranquil in the convent. Her undeserved reproaches filled him with anguish, terror, and remorse. She spoke of ten letters that she had written to him. He had not received one of them! She was about to leave France. Her letter, she said, would be delivered to him after she had gone. He turned furiously on the messenger. The man told him that his mistress had left Paris the night before. He convent gate, and saw Mademoiselle de L's carriage still standing there without horses. Then he bethought him that if he were guilty I was quite as much so, and he set out in quest of me at Saint Germain. I was not there. He hurried back to Paris, and met me at Count S- -'s door. Alas! Alas! What was I to think of all this? Either Patrick, impatient at his man's delay, must have gone himself to the convent, or Mademoiselle de L-, informed by her own messenger At once Sara was forgotten. Furi- of what had taken place, had sent to ous at the idea that Fincer or his ser- find him. Could Sara be long ignorant vants had intercepted his letters, of what had taken place? And what Patrick flew down-stairs, to vent his was the next thing that might haprage on the domestics. Fincer, hear-pen? ing the commotion, came forth to learn what had happened. Patrick reproached him as bitterly as his servants, and, threatening vengeance, left the house. From The Quarterly Review. OCEAN MEADOWS.1 OUT in blue water, poised on the surface of thousands of fathoms of sea, Hétérocystées. Fincer, on learning what had taken place, and that Patrick had rushed from his daughter's sick-bed to her rival, became in his turn so angry that it brought on a fit of apoplexy of which he died. One of his servants had had the presence of mind to shut rice Gomont. (Extr. "Annales des Sciences Natu the door of Sara's chamber, while another went to inform the count and countess as her nearest friends. Patrick, meantime, hurried to Mademoiselle de L's house. He found 11. Revision des Nostocacées Par MM. Ed. Bornet et Ch. Flahault. (Extr. "Annales des Sciences Naturelles.") Paris, 1886-1888. 2. Monographie des Oscillariées. Par M. Mau relles.") Paris, 1893. 3. Das Pflanzenleben der Hochsee. Von Dr. Franz Schütt. (Ergebnisse der in dem Atlantischen Ocean ausgeführten Plankton Expedition der Humboldt Stiftung, herausgegeben von Victor Hensen.) Kiel und Leipzig, 1893. 4. Report on Deep Sea Deposits. By John Mur the traveller finds it hard to realize | ing matter of plants, and vegetating that he is crossing a meadow of plants, by means of it in ordinary plant fashevading observation as individuals, and ion. This great group is not only more even, under ordinary circumstances, varied in form, but has even wider inconspicuous in the mass, yet every- frontiers than the bacteria as regards where present, affording nutrition to its distribution. Owing to less specialminute forms of animal life, which in ized modes of life the least specialturn supply the food of shoals of fishes. ized of any organized beings the The study of these ocean meadows and green Protophyta occur universally. of the animal life that they support They are found wherever there is suggests a variety of questions, which moisture and a little light, — with the are of practical and economic, as well moss in its cranny, in lakes and rivers, as theoretical or scientific, interest. by seashores, and, even penetrating to They are the feeding-grounds of fishes; those regions where bacterial life is they open out fields of enquiry to natu- normally scarce or absent, on the tops ralists; they offer difficulties to students of mountains and in the open ocean of geology; and the validity of evolution the "blue water" of seafaring landemands an explanation of the prob- guage. lems connected with their appearance. The admirable work which M. BorWriters on sanitation have made us net and his two pupils, as they would painfully familiar with the facts that a no doubt proudly confess themselves, profusion of mingled organisms inhabit have done in monographing the great the air in greater or less density, and groups of Protophyta called the heterthat man is constantly surrounded with ocystal Nostocaceae (Rivularieæ, Siroevidence of the avoidable as well as the siphoniec, Scytonemeæ, Nostoceœ) and inevitable impurity of his dealings with the homocystal Nostocacea or Oscilorganic substances. Though such or- larieæ, so much surpasses ordinary ganisms are not true aërial denizens, botanical systematic work that it is but, like the seeds of thistles blown by difficult to refrain from the use of the wind, are mere passengers through apparently exaggerated language in the atmosphere, a consideration of their describing it. The differences of strucoccurrence in such multitudes in the ture and development which are charair impresses us with the fact that the acteristic of species of plants are very frontiers of the distribution of organic obscure in these low forms, and their life are scarcely to be delimited. The scrutiny is a work of labor in its methliving earth and its waters teem with ods. There are probably no plants, inconspicuous and unsuspected forms into the systematic literature of which of bacterial life, performing functions greater confusion has been imported. of the utmost utility to man, and on the The bacteria, perhaps, ought to be exother hand potent with latent hostility. cepted, since species-making has here Such organisms share these attributes fallen into the hands of chemists, medwith the lower fungi, but the relation-ical men, and physiologists, who are a ship formerly presumed to exist be- law to themselves in their mode of distween bacteria and fungi is now known criminating specific rank by physiologto be merely one of function. They agree, that is, in following parasitic and saprophytic modes of life, setting up diseases in the one case and decay in the other, and are as little related as bats are to birds. The true next of kin of bacteria are the other Protophyta containing chlorophyll, the green color-pers tell us, will one day form a chapter ray, LL.D., and Rev. A. F. Renard, LL.D. (Reports of the Scientific Results of the Exploring Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger.) 1891. ical and chemical tests instead of by the characters afforded by structure and development. The natural history of bacteria has come to be disregarded, and the sensational recognitions of new forms in association with disease, of which professional and daily newspa in the chronique scandaleuse of botany, when these forms find their natural historian in a new Bornet. In the early days of the bacteria and Pliny begins, as was to be expected, scare, if it may be so termed, the true the work of mixing matters, having path was pointed out by the celebrated collected idle tales about King Erythras, botanist Bary in his "Lectures on Bac- the reflection of the sun's rays, the teria; - ?? but his voice cried in a wil-color of the sand, and the nature of the derness of eager bacteriologists, who water. Montagne,1 in his memoir on adopted some of his methods and rediscovered others, while they neglected his adjuration to remember that bacteria are to be studied like other plants and not like chemical products and physiological principles. A ready means of gauging the amount and character of the work of MM. Bornet, Flahault, and Gomont, is supplied when we compare the disorder that existed among the green Protophyta, which they have monographed, with that existing among the colorless forms the bacteria. In accomplishing their task, the greatest difficulty has no doubt been the relegation of the endless bad species to their proper place. The catalogue of "species excludenda" enormously exceeds in number the legitimate species, and the conscientious execution of the task of investigating all these claimants to specific rank must have proved a heartbreaking labor. The difficulties have been equalled by the honest hard work and brilliant interpretatious of the authors. One of the most interesting directions in which science has recently advanced is exhibited in the records of the existence of a flora and a fauna of universal occurrence in the most inhospitable wastes of the sea. The phosphorescence, or luminosity as it is better termed, of the ocean is well known to be due to the presence of organisms in it in vast numbers. This phenomenou, almost as brilliantly exhibited on our western coasts as in tropical seas, has at all times attracted notice; but the conditions of its exhibition are even now imperfectly understood. From the earliest times to the present there are direct and indirect records of the occurrence of transient phenomena of a like kind to be seen in the open light of day. Many speculations have been hazarded as to the origin of the name of the Red Sea. Herodotus helps us merely to the name, the subject, assigned the true origin of Not Tennyson, nor Ruskin, ever stated Gardens, where, in the months of coasts, plus floating Sargasso banks' September and October, the fountains against the animal life of the whole spout sprays of blue-green water. The ocean was apparent to all who considmarine phenomena are on a grander ered the matter. The balance has been scale. The organisms find the most adjusted by the discovery of an ubiquifavorable conditions of temperature, of tous marine vegetation, causing the light, of salinity, etc., for the purpose tropical seas to glow with phosphoresof multiplication, just as the allied bac- cent beams, and discoloring polar ice teria find such best possible conditions where the sea breaks on it. The existwith the result of an epidemic disease. ence of these meadows of plants is How far indeed such conditions, wholly made plain to us by the direct evidence external to our bodies and not involving of tow-netting the upper layers of any preliminary weakness of our health, may constitute what is called "predisposition" to disease, is a subject which students of plant diseases understand much better than the pathologists of man and animals. Visible occurrences such as these are probably much more common in the ocean than is supposed, and an enquiry into their mode of origin leads us to the facts, that such organisms do ordinarily exist at all places in the sea, and that it is merely under the most favorable conditions that we observe this sudden increase in the numbers of particular species. water with fine silk nets, when their capture, together with the minute forms of animal life that live upon them, is effected. The minute animal life in turn furnishes food for shoals of fishes, and the importance of an enquiry into the whole life-history and seasonal occurrences of such organisms the basis of the nutrition of marine life, as green plants are of terrestrial life can scarcely be overrated. No such enquiry has ever been conducted iu a serious scientific spirit in our seas by other than private investigators, unequipped with adequate resources for the proper study of the subject in its economic aspect. Our Fishery Boards concern themselves as little with this vital matter as they possibly can. Nor is this apathy surprising, when it is remembered that the present government have appointed to the chairmanship of gentleman, who possibly understands the "branding" of herrings, but whose chief qualification for the post was a safe constituency. Yet at the moment when this appointment was made, they had the opportunity, pressed upon them by a large body of scientific men, of choosing an eminent naturalist, whose claims as a student of the ocean are admitted by men of all nations to be unrivalled. Those who knew that the whole bulk of animal life in the ocean must be directly and indirectly dependent on the vegetation of the ocean, were puzzled for many years by the difficulty of accounting for the apparent disparity of their volumes, since the marine the Scottish Fishery Board an estimable vegetation of the coasts alone is manifestly insufficient to preserve the balance. The least observant eye notes that, on the great carpet of green which covers the earth, the animal life is but a faint pattern; in the ocean the proportion seems to be reversed. Owing to the action of sea-water in intercepting light, which is necessary for the nutrition of all plants except parasites, there is complete darkness below seven hundred fathoms or less; but, long before this depth is reached, the quality of light in relation to its action on plants is so profoundly modified, that marine vegetation penetrates to a trifling depth. On the other hand, the marine fauna ranges into the great depths, and the impossibility of balancing a mere fringe of vegetation along Much is heard of the study of the migrations of food fishes; but why not begin the matter by enquiring into the - the occurrences of the food of fishes, vegetation that supports all marine life? Men whose minds are open to such considerations do not sit for safe constituencies in sufficient numbers to make an official enquiry probable in the Apart from the economic aspect of the study of pelagic vegetation, the subject has a purely scientific importance and interest not only to natural near future. But, besides the Fishery | of the pelagic flora; they are otherBoards, there is at least one institution wise a mere groping in the dark. from which light might be expected on such a subject. Some years ago a marine laboratory was established at Plymouth, from which economic as well as scientific blessings were exists but to students of geology as well. pected to flow. Has such an enquiry ever been made under its auspices? Its mills grind slowly; but they do not grind small enough for microscopic organisms of this kind. The extensive fossil diatomaceous deposits, containing the innumerable and exceedingly minute siliceous shells of diatoms a group of the lowest algæof Tertiary and Quaternary age, now The economic value of such an en-used in the manufacture of dynamite, quiry can be sufficiently indicated by polishing powders, etc., are the testibriefly comparing its importance for mony of the rocks to the enormous fishery with that of land vegetation for activity of these organisms in the fresh terrestrial life. We know that the nu- and salt waters of past times. It is an trition of the whole animal kingdom, interesting fact about these great fossil including mankind, depends, wholly deposits, that, though many specific and absolutely, upon the activity of forms are represented in each of them, vegetation in converting the inorganic yet either a single species, or at most a into the organic for our food; and, few, compose the mass of each formaaccordingly, the study of economic tion. It is exceptionally noteworthy botany, especially agriculture, exacts the attention of States as well as of individuals. The basis of fishery is precisely the same as the basis of agriculture, and, as now conducted, fishery is in the same state of development as agriculture was in the days when nomadic man chased and slew the beasts of the field without bestowing a thought on the nature of their pastures. The primitive hunter indeed knew, as the modern fisherman knows, that there are special feeding-grounds, because both have blundered on them. Our Fishery Boards have developed so far as to be able to tell the fishermen what they must not do. The negative result is something to be grateful for; but it seems asking too much to invite these authorities to discover some course which might be recommended in the way of positive action. No such advance is likely to be made until their investigations pass beyond purely technical matters into the regions of science. It is true that examinations of marine temperatures are conducted. One is tempted to wonder why they are made -possibly on purely meteorological grounds. Such observations are of the greatest value in connection with observations of pelagic life. that they all belong to genera, and in a very high proportion to species, living at the present time. In the chalk itself there are preserved species still extant, and before the chalk there is an absolute blank in the record of the rocks as to this form of vegetation, though the conditions appear to have existed abundantly for the preservation of such comparatively indestructible bodies as the siliceous shells of diatoms. Castracane has indeed recorded that he found in the ash of Englislu coal eight species of freshwater diatoms of commou Occurrence at the present day. But exhaustive and fruitless research has been made by others, and the record is open to question. Some of these deposits are of freshwater, and some of marine, origin; and it is again noteworthy that the latter contain many forms now exclusively marine. The records of the Challenger and other expeditions have shown us, that the floor of the ocean, over many large tracts, is now receiving, in the form of diatomaceous ooze, vast quantities of the siliceous walls of diatoms slowly showered down from the surface layers of water, where in life they play their part as pelagic vegespecially etation. The naturalists of Sir James |