Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/390

 made of the epidermis, including stomata of leaves of cabbage, corn, lilac, pine, and barberry. Next were studied the root-hairs on seedling clover and the stalked glands of the cup of the cup-plant (Silphium perfoliatum). Internal structure of leaf of stone-crop, lilac, and compass-plant were compared, followed by stem of purslane and maple (one and two years old); pine-wood, medullary rays; endogenous stem of asparagus and young corn, crystals; starch, cork, latex tubes, sieve-cells, and the mucilaginous modification of cell-walls as seen in the outer coat of the flaxseed.

This term is followed by another devoted to laboratory work of a more advanced sort, along with a course of lectures upon cryptogamic botany and vegetable physiology.

The old and, at one time, half-true belief that botany is a simple, useless, frivolous study of blossoms which the simpering girls at fashionable seminaries may be excused for calling a branch of learning, is fast passing away. It is a hopeful sign that even so plain-thinking and practical a class as our best farmers are beginning to realize that it is a pecuniary advantage to know more concerning the structure and habits of their farm-crops. They feel that there are laws which govern the improvement of their grains and fruits as well as of their cattle and sheep. In short, there is a demand for thorough instruction in all that pertains to plant-life, and the question naturally arises in the mind of the teacher. What is the best method of meeting the call made upon him for more light? Whatever the best way may be, it is hoped that the outline herein given approaches a method, pointing in the right direction—one which stimulates to deeper and more independent thought, and begets a spirit of respect for the minutest thing, and a burning love to know the truth as it is revealed in the endless book of Nature.



N 1883 Congress appropriated money to buy presents for the purpose of rewarding the natives of St. Lawrence Bay, northeastern Siberia. These people had been very kind to the officers and men of the United States relief-ship Rodgers, burned in that bay November, 1881, while in search of the ill-fated Jeannette, having fed and partly clothed them through a severe arctic winter. Lieutenant George M. Stoney, United States Navy, one of the officers of the Rodgers, was detailed to make the presents, and in May, 1883, took passage in the revenue-cutter Corwin with 