London and New York: H. Baillière, 1854. 12mo, pp. 340.-This is a most timely contribution to the small amount of real knowledge possessed by even intelligent foreigners of the many various races which make up the population of Russia. The great interest universally felt at this moment in everything relating to the vast empire of Russia, will render this descriptive account of the tribes occupying its surface, and including all those nations who have been conquered by the ruling race or absorbed into its body-particularly acceptable. The volume is accompanied by a reduced copy of the great Ethnological and Statistical Map of Russia which was published in 1852 by the Imperial Geographical Society of St. Petersburg.

The author recognises three chief constituent stocks in the Russian Empire, viz., the Ugrian, the Turk and the Sarmatian. These original races are now subdivided into no less than thirty-eight tribes each distinguished on the map by a separate color.

Dr. Latham is beyond doubt the leading authority in our language on all ethnological topics, and his present compendious little volume will be caught up with avidity by thousands who would have hesitated to grapple with a more extended work, while the amount of new facts and new summaries of old facts is such as to reward the perusal of all.

F. ENGEL: Axonometrical Projections of the most important geometrical surfaces and drawings for descriptive geometry, with 1x plates and a catalogue of models for the study of Optics and the higher branches of Geometry. Price $3.50. [The models in wood or plaster can be had at 343 Broadway, the Depot of J. B. Luhme & Co., of Berlin.]

BRITISH ASSOCIATION: Proceedings for 1853. London, 1854.

24

S. S. GARRIGUES: Chemical Investigations on Radix Ginseng Americana, Oleum Chenopodii Anthelmintici, and Oleum Menthæ viridis. Inaugural Dissertation. pp. 8vo. Göttingen, 1854.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACAD. NAT. SCI. PHILADELPHIA, Vol. VII, No. 6.—p. 196, Characteristics of some of the Cartilaginous fishes of the Pacific Coast of North America; C. Girard.-p. 197, Abstract of a Report to Lieut. Jas. M Gilliss, U. S.. N., on the Fishes collected during the U. S. N. Astronomical Expedition to Chili, C. Girard-p. 199, Fossil bones from the banks of the Ohio, Indiana; J. Leidy.-p. 203, Loxia leucoptera abundant near Philadelphia; J. Cassin.-p. 204, Abstract of Experiments on the Physical Influences exerted by living Organic and Inorganic membranes upon Chemical Substances passing through them by Endosmosis; J. Jones-p. 209, On the question of the identity of Bootherium cavifrons with Ovibos moschatus; J. Leidy.-p. 211, Descriptions of the Species of Trox and Omorgus inhabiting the United States; J. L. Le Conte.-p. 216, Some corrections in the Nomenclature of Coleoptera found in the United States; J. L. Le Conte.—p. 220, Descriptions of new Coleoptera, collected by T. H. Webb, M.D., in the years 1850, 51, '52, while Secretary to the U. S. Mexican Boundary Commission; J. L. LeConte.— p. 226, Abstract of a Report to Lieut. J. M. Gilliss, U. S. N., on the Reptiles, colfected during the U. S. N. Astronomical Expedition to Chili; C. Girard-p. 227. A List of Pigeons of the Genus Carpophaga, in the Academy of Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, and of the U. S. Exp. Exped. (Vincennes and Peacock,) Washington; J. Cassin.-p. 232, Herrerite identical with Smithsonite; F. A. Genth-Chemical Notices; C. M. Wetherill.—p. 236, Rectification of Mr. T. A. Conrad's Synopsis of the Family of Naiades of North America, published in the Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philad. for Feb. 1853; I. Lea.

Aspi

PROCEEDINGS OF ACAD. NAT. SCI., SAN FRANCISCO.-p. 7, New Fishes of the Genus Sebastes; Centrarchus; Morrhua, Grystes lineatus, Clypeocottus robustus = cottus bison of Girard; Brosmius marginatus A.; Syngnathus griseo-lineatus A.; Accipenser acutirostris A., A. brachyrhynchus A.; Osmerus elongatus A., Mustelus felis A., Catostomus occidentalis A., Gila grandis A.,-all by W. O. Ayres, pages 7 to 18 all that we have received of the Proceedings.—p. 14, Description of Lavatera assurgentifiora (n. sp.); Dr. Kellogg.

THE

AMERICAN

JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND ARTS.

[SECOND SERIES.]

ART. XXXI.-The Vegetable Individual, in its relation to Species, (Das Individuum der Pflanze in seinem Verhältniss zur Species, Generationsfolge, Generationswechsel und Generationstheilung der Pflanze); by Dr. ALEXANDER BRAUN, Professor of Botany in the University of Berlin, &c. &c. Berlin, 1853. Translated by CHAS. FRANCIS STONE.

PART I.-INTRODUCTION AND HISTORY.+

IN Organic Nature the two principal phenomena, in which the shifting scenes of Life are unfolded, are individual development and individual propagation. Through them the intricate course of Nature, and its living chain of organized beings, are refreshed and renewed. Every new generation seems to bring back the old form; still, to the investigator who looks deeper into the graves of the past, a slow, but certain, progress reveals itself even in this apparently identical succession. If nature is to be for us. something more than a labyrinth of varied and intricate phenomena; and if, in the apparent disorder, the hidden threads of the connection are to become visible, we must first of all separate and compare the different spheres of life, placing them higher or lower, according to their rank. The starting-points, which nature offers for such a purpose are, the Individual and the Species; whose reciprocal relations, however simple they may at first appear, when followed out to particulars lead to difficulties which From the Transactions of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences, for 1853, ↑ I have omitted the author's brief introductory remarks.—Transl. SCEOND SERIES, Vol. XIX, No. 57.-May, 1855.

38

demand an accurate examination.* From the Botanist such an examination is particularly demanded; as the vegetable ideal presented to us by the science in its earlier stages has been obscured by conceptions obtained from the animal kingdom having been transferred to Botany, though based upon the mistaken assumption that plants possess the same independent individuality as animals, the same organs with equally well-defined functions, and the same mutually dependent relations of the vital activities. And the investigations of late years, forsaking the old views more and more, have arrived at no well-defined conclusions, and, particularly as regards vegetable individuality, seem to lead more to negative than to positive results. After all, this should not surprise us; for even a superficial investigation shows relations in plants which will hardly harmonize with the common conceptions of individuality, and which require a careful review.

In the whole realm of organic nature, we know of not a single species of which any one individual is a perfect representative: on the contrary we see each species adding generation to generation, by multiplying the individuals in time and space, until its day has ended, whether from internal or external causes. In this particular, the species resembles the individual itself; having its allotted age, though measured by days of a higher order, and its appointed cycle of life,-in which the individuals appear as members occupying a certain time and place,-resembling the successive relative forms through which the individual passes. For the organic individual does not manifest itself in one single permanent form, but in a succession of forms, now gradually connected, now broadly interrupted; and these last, especially in plants, may attain to an independence, which gives them the character of a subordinate species. To this analogy between individuals and species it may be objected, that, in most cases, a very remarkable metamorphosis is connected with the successive forms of the individual, while within the sphere of the species the consecutive members continue to have essentially the same

*Should any one be inclined to doubt that the nature of the vegetable individual needs a futher discussion, I would beg him to turn to the latest works on Botany and compare the passages which treat of the plant's individuality. I take Kützing's Grundzüge der phil. Botanik (2nd Part), as we have a right to demand from a work that lays claim to philosophical development, a fundamental discussion of this subject, since it is the ground-work of the whole science. The first two paragraphs under the heading "Das Pflanzenindividuum als Organismus," read as follows: "By individual we here mean a single vegetable body not organically connected with a similar vegetable body. Vegetable individuals have the power of developing the general phenomena of vegetable life by themselves, unassisted by any other individual of the same species. It is the nature of an organism to consist of members. ... The possession of members is the first, as well as the most essential condition of the existence of the vegetable individual." Not one of these assertions is true of vegetable individuals, either in the broader or the narrower signification of the term. To say nothing of the connection, in which the individuals appear which are successively developed by shoot-formation, the coalesence of stocks which were originally sepa

character. But, however important this fact may be, still we may assert of the individual as well as of the species, that it completes the cycle of its existence in a succession of subordinate generations, while, on the other hand, we may affirm of the species, that like the individual, it exhibits a determinate cycle of development. In comparing the processes of propagation with the process of the formation of the individual, cell-formation, which lies at the foundation of both, reveals the intimate connection which exists between the small and the great spheres of development; while the numerous cases which admit of a double explanation (since they may be ascribed with almost equal justice to the inferior cycle of development of the individual, or to the superior one of the species) establish the close relationship of The above-mentioned circumstance, that the cycle of development does not present as graduated a progress in the species as it does in the individual, seems to suggest that the most reliable view of the analogy between the species and the individual is that in which the species is not compared with the whole cycle of the individual's successive development, but with the single steps of the metamorphosis (which of course has its own subordinate members), and in which the species itself is regarded as an inferior "momentum" of a still more comprehensive cycle of development; but to determine this would lead us too far from our subject. In a word, the relation of the individual to the species is that of an inferior cycle of development to a superior: the individual is a member of the species. However, although they are under one and the same specific law, all the members of the species are not identical: a single member only represents the idea of the species more or less incompletely; and certain members, or series of members, are thus reciprocal complements. The regular relations here brought to view will form the principal subject of the present investigation. But we must first carefully determine the sphere of the individual. The individual shall not and may not be considered by itself: it must be viewed rate is no rarity. Are the pines of a pine-forest no individuals because, as Göppert has shown, they are connected with each other by their roots? Do the filaments of Zygneme cease to be individuals when they copulate. Are the cells of Hydrodictyon and Pediastrum, originally separate, no longer individuals when they have joined themselves into a net, or a star? To refute the second assertion, we may refer to diecious plants; to refute the third, we refer to the one-celled Algæ and Fungi, a part of which, at least, are of such a character that we can by no means ascribe to them an organisation in the usual acceptation of the term. However, we may regard it as an improvement, that Kützing's Grundzüge treats of the vegetable individual at all; for the earlier manuals do not even mention this important subject, but commence their account of plants with descriptions of the root, stem and other organs, or, as it has been preferred of late years, of the cells and vesicles.

Those of the forms and properties, which persist through the successive generations, determine the species. Link: Grundlehren der Kräuterkunde, vi, p. 11. The species is an individual of a higher rank (higher power). Link, l. c., p. 11. Cf. the Author's work on Verjüngung (1849), note to p. 344.

in the successive generations to which it belongs. This succession may be similar or dissimilar, simple or complicated by divisions, continuous or graduated by cyclical changes. It is by this that the phenomena of fissiparous and alternate generation may be explained. It is only by a consideration of these relations that the nature of the individual itself, as a subordinate sphere of the species' development, can be rightly comprehended, and that the single individuals in their worth and importance, in their relations to each other and to the whole realized cycle of the species, can be understood.

Preliminary remarks on Vegetable Individuality: different views in regard to it.

We must determine what constitutes the vegetable individual, before we can investigate its relations to the whole cycle of generation of the species. But it is this determination itself which presents so many difficulties; and these difficulties become the greater, the further we push our investigations. Individuality in plants seems as obscure and ambiguous, as in animals (at least in their higher orders,) it appears clear and simple; so that, as Steinheil remarks, it escape's us just when we are upon the point of seizing it; and investigators might even conclude that we can realize no other individuality than that which is manifested in the totality of the species. The first obstacle to our comprehending the vegetable individual as a single sphere of conformation, as a morphological whole, is the disconnected and separate character which obtains in the most heterogeneous modifications of vegetable organisms. For no where in the vegetable kingdom do we perceive that indissoluble connection, and those pervading reciprocal functions, which in the animal kingdom we are accustomed to associate with the idea of an individual organism. Nevertheless, by starting from a comparison with animals we get an apposite point of departure for a comprehension of the plant's individuality. Among the higher animals, the individual appears as a member of a race produced by sexual generation; and this very test may be applied to plants, except in the very lowest forms, to which sexual generation does not apply at all, or not positively. Without at present discussing the question whether the vegetable individual thus conceived is truly analogous to the animal individual, we may here state, that this conception carried out to its consequences, involves the assumption that all the plant-stocks produced, not by sexual generation, but by any mode of vegetable division, are not individuals, but only parts of the primary individual to which they owe their origin; as Gallesio has

"Dans chacun de ces organes nous nous croyons au premier aspect sur le point de saisir l'individualité normale, et partout elle nous échappe." Steinheil : Dễ l'individualité végétale (1836), p. 9.