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Show 204 JJ.ARWINI.A.NA. by step in the series of forms ; but .the ~ause of the likeness here is obvious. And th1s brmgs in our " '11Wtif philosophique." Not to insist that the likeness is after all the vari-able not the constant, element-to learn which is the esse~tial thing, resemblance among individuals or their genetic connection-we have only to ask which can be the cause of the other. · In hermaphrodite plants (the normal case), and even as the question is ingeniously put by De Oandolle in the above extract, the former surely cannot be the cause of the latter, though it may, in case of crossing, offer occasion. But, on the ground of the most fundamental of all things in the constitution of plants and animals-the fact incapable of further analysis, that individuals reproduce their like, that characteristics are inheritable-the likeness is a direct natural consequence of the genetic succession; "and it is logical to place the cause above the effect." We are equally disposed to combat a proposition of De Oandolle's about genera, elaborately argued in · the " Geographie Botanique," and incidentally reaf. firmed in his present article, viz., that genera are more natural than species, and more correctly distinguished by people in general, as is shown by vernacular names. But we have no space left in which to present some evidence to the contrary. v. SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY; 'l'HE RELATIONS OF NORTH AMERICAN TO NORTHEAST ASIAN AND TO TERTIARY VEGETATION. (A PRESIDE...'ITIAL ADDRESS TO THE AMERIO.A.N ASSOCIATION FOR THE .ADVANCE· MENT OF SCIENCE, AT DUBUQUE, AU(Jtt8t, 1572.) ~r:E session being now happily inaugurated, your presldmg officer of the last year has only one duty to perform before he surrenders the chair to his successor. If allowed to borrow a simile from the language of my own profession, I might liken the President of this Association to a biennial plant. He flourishes for the yea~ in which _he comes. into existence, and performs his appropriate functions as presiding officer. When the second year comes round, he is expected to blossom out in an address and disappear. Each president, as he retires,.is naturally expected to contribute s?mething from his own investigations or his own line of study, usually to discuss some particular scientific topic. Now, although I have cultivated the field of North .American botany, with some assiduity, for more than for~y years, have reviewed our vegetable hosts~ and assigned to no small number of them their names and their place in the ranks, yet, so far as our own wide country is concerned, I have been to a great extent a |