animal. The life of the females is almost vegetative; with an outward form so undeveloped as to quite resemble a larva, she fastens herself to the leaf or bark, and, drawing the juices therefrom, develops her ovaries, successive litters of eggs being formed; and, as the conditions of her life would be wholly incompatible with the formation of eggs and their deposit, as in most other insects, these eggs undergo most of their development in the mother, escaping from her just before they hatch. The orange Coccus is therefore viviparous. The male appears only at certain seasons, and is literally only a locomotive male apparatus, for his digestive organs are undeveloped, and as the testes, &c. are already fully formed at his first appearance, he lives only to impregnate the females. The means I shall recommend for a removal of this pest, will be based upon a consideration of the intimate economy of the animal.

Correspondence of M. Jerome Nicklès, dated Paris, February 27, 1854.

AT one of its late sessions, the Academy of Sciences awarded the annual prizes to authors of works on different subjects proposed by it, and also "encouragements" to those who have distinguished themselves by researches in their own proper domain. As the list of prizes is long, we will only mention those of more special interest.

1. The Academy awarded the prize in Mechanics to Felix Franchot (1) for the invention of the lamp known under the name of "lampe à moderateur," brought forward by him in 1836 and 1837, the use of which has now become general; (2) for his experiments in the construction of motive engines with hot air, which he has pursued with unceasing perseverance since the year 1836. We have already spoken of the researches of M. Franchot and will not return to them. The report upon them was made by the distinguished engineer and mechanician, M. Combes, at this moment President of the Academy of Sciences.

2. Prize Extraordinary on the Application of Steam to Navigation. In November, 1834, the government established a prize of 6000 francs for the work or memoir which should occasion the greatest advance in the application of steam to navigation and to naval force. Since this epoch, until 1848, great improvements have taken place, but they were not first put in practice in France; they were brought out in America and England. But now, by the construction and success of the "Napoleon," a vessel of the line with sails and steam, the end of the prize has been completely attained. The Academy has consequently assigned the prize (1) to M. Dupuy de Lôme, officer of the naval Engineer corps, for devising and constructing the ship Napoleon with sails and steam having a screw propeller, which unites in a remarkable degree rapid sailing and excellent sea qualities. (2) A prize to M. Moll, officer of the Naval Engineer Corps, sub-director of naval construction at the great manufacturing establishment of Indret, for having calculated the theory of, and constructed, the mechanism of the Napoleon, and for having, in

* In awarding the prize to M. Franchot, the Academy does not touch the question of priority as to hot-air engines, it being well known that M. Franchot in this respect has others before him.

connection with M. Bourgois, made the experiments with the screw propeller, the results of which are now the rule with engineers. (3.) To M. Bourgois, Captain in the Navy ("de fregate") for his labors on the screw propeller, and for his views on the progressive transformation of the existing naval marine into a mixed marine of sails and steam. The Report made by M. Charles Dupin, is extremely interesting, as respects the history of steam navigation, and we regret that we cannot find place for it here.

The question proposed in 1852 for the physical sciences was the following: "To discover by direct observations and experiment the mode of development of intestinal worms and that of their transmission from one animal to another, and to apply the anatomical and physiological facts thus brought out to determining their affinities." In pursuance of the remarkable Report of M. de Quatrefages, the Academy awarded the prize to M. van Beneden, Professor at the University of Louvain (Belgium), and made honorable mention of M. Küchenmeister of Zittau (Saxony).

The prize in Experimental Physiology has been awarded to M. Claude Bernard for his discovery, with regard to the influence, which the cervical portion of the Great Sympathetic Nerve exerts on the temperature of the parts, to which its threads are distributed, accompanying the arterial vessels.

Another prize has been given for the Traité de Chimie Anatomique et Physiologique of MM. Robin and Verdeil, on account of the new facts which it contains and the thorough manner in which chemical facts in their relation to medicine are presented.

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Among the prizes, there are also, the medals awarded to MM. de Gasparis, Chacornac, Luther and Hind for the discovery of five new planets; a prize to M. Fontaine and M. Machecourt for a parachute for the use of miners; an encouragement" to M. Chuard for his attempts towards perfecting the miner's safety lamp. Other prizes for works on Statistics, Medicine, Surgery, and a grand prize to M. Hervé Mangon for his "Etudes sur le drainage au point de vue pratique et administratif."

Among the subjects of prizes offered we mention only those pertaining to the physical sciences.

1. For 1856.-A rigorous and methodical investigation into the metamorphoses and reproduction of the Infusoria properly so called, (the Polygastrica of M. Ehrenberg).

2. For 1855.-An exposition of the laws governing the distribution of fossils in the different sedimentary strata in their order of superposition; and a discussion of the question of their appearance or disappearance, successive or simultaneous.

A research into the nature of the relations existing between the present and past states of the organic kingdom.

Another for 1856.-The determination, through the study of the development of the embryo in two species, one taken from the class of Vertebrata, and the other either from the Mollusca or Articulata, of the proper foundation for comparative embryology.

The prizes for either of the above is a gold medal of 3000 francs value.

SECOND SERIES, Vol. XVII, No. 51.-May, 1854.

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A medal of gold, of 800 francs, is decreed each year to the work, printed or in manuscript, which appears to have contributed the most to the Progress of Experimental Physiology.

A gold medal of the value of 2500 francs, is offered for 1856, for the best work on the mode of fecundation of eggs, and the structure of the organs of generation, in the principal natural groups of the class of polyps, or of that of Acalephs.

A large number of prizes are offered in mathematics, medicine and physiology, and NOTHING for physics, chemistry or mineralogy; it would seem as if these sciences had no existence. It is true that the Academy of Sciences of Paris has little to show among the great discoveries which physics and chemistry have accomplished in these later years; certainly such discoveries have not been called forth by any action on the part of the Academy.

Deaths and Academic Elections.--The Botanical Section has lost this year three of its members: A. DE JUSSIEU, President of the Academy, AUGUSTE DE ST. HILAIRE, and more lately GAUDICHAUD; and in the preceding year it lost RICHARD, Professor in the Faculty of Medicine. It has been recently occupied with filling these vacancies. MoxTAGNE and TULASNE replace MM. Richard and de Jussieu; and A. de St. Hilaire is succeeded by M. MOQUIN-TANDON, the celebrated author on Vegetable Teratology, at present Professor in the Faculty of Medicine.

Zoological Society for the Acclimation of Animals.—Since we are in the midst of Natural History, we hasten to announce the formation of a Society whose end is to apply the Science of Zoology to the Acclimation and Domnestication of valuable animals from difierent regions of the globe. Its founder and President is M. Isidore Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, son of the illustrious zoologist, and who should not be confounded with the botanist, M. Auguste de St. Hilaire, to whom we have above alluded. M. Is. G. St. Hilaire is Professor of Zoology at the Jardin des Plantes, and for a long time he has prepared himself for the noble work which, aided by several other savants and the principal great proprietors of France, he is about to undertake. The end of the Society is to promote (1) the introduction, acclimation and domestication of species of animals either useful or ornamental. (2.) The perfection and multiplication of new varieties, introduced or domesticated. The number of members of the Society is not limited, and foreigners may unite in it. And among the latter, there are already Prince Demidoff, MM. Graëlls, Ramon de la Sagra, Vilanova of Madrid, and a large number of Belgians, Swiss and Germans, and some from the United States.

Artificial Production of Pleochroism in Crystallized Substances.— The influence which small quantities of a foreign substance chemically inert, exert upon the physical properties of bodies, as their density, index of refraction and angle of polarization, has long been known. Some years since, I showed that these causes act also on the angles of crystals, and at times produce modifications as great as a change of the type and system of crystallization, and thus may give rise to dimorphism. Since then M. Hugard has observed facts of a similar

* Comptes Rendus de l'Acad. des Sci., 1848.

+ Comptes Rendus de Laurent, etc., 1850, and Annalen de Ch. et de Phys., 1858.

kind in sulphate of strontian, and M. G. Rose, in tetradymite; according to the latter, foreign matters cause the rhombohedron of tetradymile to vary nearly 3 degrees from that of the pure metals.

In view of such facts, my opinion appears less exaggerated than at first. The two forms of dimorphous bodies are in general approximate forms, whose prisms, although pertaining to distinct systems, differ be tween them only a few degrees in angle. I have inferred that a foreign substance present, may at times modify the molecular force which presides in crystallization, so as to give the molecules what is needed to cause them to pass from one system to another.

Should a new planet suddenly appear in our system, all the other plan. ets would feel it as much as if a planet were withdrawn. A crystal is in my view a planetary system formed of atomic planets in motion; foreign molecules or planets abruptly introduced, bring in their own attraction and proper movements, and impress on the other atoms another condition of equilibrium.

Thus it may be with foreign matter which is chemically inert, as in my observation on the bimalate of ammonia, in which the foreign substance was the coloring material that was eliminated entirely by some crystallizations in pure water. If on the contrary the substance is active chemically, the form may change either totally or partially. These last are what I have called examples of hemimorphism, which I have illustrated by glycocoll and its combinations, oxalate and chlorhydrate of methylammine, etc.

It is not my intention at this time to touch on these questions. They have been called up by the reading of an important paper by M. Senarmont on the artificial production of pleochroism;-a property which he communicates to certain salts by introducing into them through crystallization, foreign substances that will not unite with them chemically, and which may be eliminated spontaneously by some solutions followed by crystallization in distilled water. He has thus communicated pleochroism to the nitrate of strontia, by crystallizing it in water colored with log-wood, changed to purple by some drops of ammonia.

Derivatives of nitrotartaric acid.-M. Dessaignes, who devotes his leisure hours to science, has brought out several new facts of interest. He has observed that the nitrotartaric acid which he has obtained, decomposes spontaneously in water, producing an acid which he calls tartronic acid, C6H4010. Heated to 160° C., it loses carbonic acid and leaves a residue which appears to correspond to C4H2O4; this in contact with potassa affords a salt, the acid of which has the composition C4H4O6 and is identical with glycollic acid, extracted from the sugar of gelatine. This acid forms an amid which is not the sugar of gelatine although like it in composition. Glycollamid is an isomere of gly. cocoll, just as lactamid is an isomere of alanine. M. Dessaignes considers the insoluble substance C4H2O4 as having the same relation to glycollic acid as lactid to lactic acid; and he hence calls it glycollid.

On the gluten of wheat.-M. Millon, compelled by his high military position to rather a nomadic life, has for some years suspended the fine researches which he had undertaken-researches on the oxydized compounds of nitrogen, chlorine, mercury, nitric ether, also on vegetable physiology, etc., which had given him a high rank among men of sci

ence.

Removed from his laboratory and sent to Africa, for political

reasons, he has found the means of carrying on some important investigations without a chemical laboratory, and he has just now brought before the Academy a series of papers which he proposes to present, containing the results of some researches on wheat.

His

In his first memoir, he brings out the important fact that there are some kinds of wheat, of good appearance, that contain no gluten. attention was called to the subject by the wheat of Guyotville (Algeria), which although appearing well, was nearly destitute of this important ingredient. He was thus led to examine a quantity of the wheat poor in gluten, and he found it to be a mixture of rich grains with others containing none of this albuminoid substance. Dough made from the wheat of Guyotville without gluten is worked with more difficulty than ordinary dough, and the bread is swallowed with some difficulty, like that which is dry or stale. The nitrogenized substance of this wheat is soluble in water.

In a second memoir, M. Millon takes up the chemical composition of different varieties of wheat, and he deduces from his results a distribution of the wheats-using terms already in use-into tender wheat, and hard wheat, the characters of which are as follows:

Tender wheat: Fracture white, opaque, and farinaceous, the starch escaping more or less abundantly; a more or less complete replacement of the gluten by a soluble albuminoid principle varying widely in the proportion of nitrogen.

Hard wheat: Fracture horny, semi-translucent, without a starchlike appearance; all the nitrogen existing under the form of gluten and the weight of it always a little superior to the quantity of albuminoid principal represented by the nitrogen; only small variations in the proportion of nitrogen, the amount of which is large. This last characteristic does not serve to distinguish the hard wheat, since it is not rare to meet with tender wheat containing as much nitrogen as the hard wheat, or even more.

Wheat intermediate between these two varieties, M. Millon names semi-hard wheat, which he describes as follows:

Fracture close and less horny than in hard wheat; whitish when crushed; a proportion of gluten mixed with the albuminoid principle; a large proportion of nitrogen, and this nearly constant.

These descriptions are completed by a mention of the external characters, taken from the volume, color, integuments, etc. His facts are derived mainly from the wheat of Algeria and those of the north of France, and it remains to make the results general, and applicable to wheat of whatever origin.

Natural History of Lupulin.-This proximate principle of Hops, was first examined by Dr. A. W. Ives, of New York; MM. Raspail, Payen, Chevallier and others, have since been occupied with it, without fully establishing its chemical constitution. M. Personne, Assistant at

the School of Pharmacy at Paris, has taken up the subject, and given it a satisfactory solution.

He has found that when acted upon by boiling water, lupulin affords two groups of substances; one obtained by distillation with water and the other by means of steam.

The former consist of valeric acid, and of valeral or valeric-aldehyde. The matters which are volatilized only through the action of steam,