even a far greater loss of life.

Notwithstanding the awfulness of volcanic and earthquake phenomena,
there is some silver lining to the dark clouds. They prove that the
earth is yet a _living_ planet. Centuries must pass away before it
will become like the moon--a dead planet--without water, air or life.
Our satellite is a prophecy indeed of what the earth must eventually
become when all its life forces, its internal energies, are dissipated
into space.--_Granville F. Foster, Min. Sci. Press_.

* * * * *




PENTAPTERYGIUM SERPENS.


This is one of five species of Himalayan plants which, until recently,
were included in the genus vaccinium. The new name for them is ugly
enough to make one wish that they were vacciniums still.
Pentapterygium serpens is the most beautiful of the lot, and, so far
as I know, this and P. rugosum are the only species in cultivation in
England. The former was collected in the Himalayas about ten years ago
by Captain Elwes, who forwarded it to Kew, where it grows and flowers
freely under the same treatment as suits Cape heaths. Sir Joseph
Hooker says it is abundant on the Sikkim mountains at from 3,000 to
8,000 feet elevation, and that it usually grows on the stout limbs of
lofty trees. In this it resembles many of the rhododendrons of that
region, and it has been suggested that they are epiphytic from force