DR. OSWALD HEER, the eminent botanist, and one who has devoted so much attention to the structure and history of fossil plants, publishes an article upon flax and its culture among the ancients, especially the prehistoric races of Europe. His memoir may be summarised as follows: First, flax has been cultivated in Egypt for five thousand years, and that it was and is one of the most generally diffused plants of that country. It occupied a similar position in ancient Babylonia, in Palestine, and on the Black Sea. It occurred in Greece during the prehistoric period, and at an early date was carried into Italy, while its cultivation in Spain was probably originated by the Phœnicians and Carthaginians. Second, it is also met with in the oldest Swiss lacustrine villages, while, at the same time, no hemp nor fabrics manufactured from wool are there to be found. This is considered a remarkable fact, since the sheep was one of the oldest domestic animals, and was known during the stone period. The impossibility of shearing the fleece by means of stone or bone implements is supposed to have been the reason why woollen fabrics were not used. It is thought probable that the skin, with its attached wool, was probably made use of for articles of clothing. Third, the lake dwellers probably received flax from Southern Europe, from which section fresh seeds must have been derived from time to time. The variety cultivated was the small, native, narrow-leaved kind from the coast of the Mediterranean, and not at all that now raised in Europe. It must, therefore, have been cultivated also in Southern Europe, although Dr. Heer could not ascertain among what people and at what age this took place. If this could be ascertained it would be an important point in the determination of the antiquity of the lake dwellers. Fourth, at the time of the empire both summer flax and winter flax were cultivated in Italy, as now, but in what form it was grown in ancient Egypt is not determined. It is thought probable that the narrow-leaved variety was first introduced, and after that the Roman, and then the common varieties followed. The common plant has doubtless arisen from the cultivation of the narrow-leaved, while the Roman winter flax and the Linum ambiguum constitute the intermediate stages. The original home of the cultivated flax was therefore along the shores of the Mediterranean. The Egyptians had probably cultivated it, and from them its use was doubtless disseminated. It is possible that the wild variety and the winter flax were grown elsewhere at the same time, when the cultivated variety had long since driven them out of use in Egypt.