fact that the ideas of immortality had taken a new shape, and that the philosophy of the times regarded the stars of heaven as the pure essences of the grosser things belonging to this world. The pure is heavenly and the gross earthly, and therefore that which is purest on earth ascends to the regions of the stars. At the same time hermits and other ascetics began to be credited with the power of acquiring extraordinary longevity, and the stork became the animal which the Immortals preferred to ride above all others. The idea of plants which confer immunity from death soon sprang up. The fungus known as _Polyporus lucidus_ was taken to be the most efficacious of all plants in guarding man from death, and 3,000 ounces of silver have been asked for a single specimen. Its red color was among the circumstances which gave it its reputation, for at this time the five colors of Babylonian astrology had been accepted as indications of good and evil fortune. This connection of a red color with the notion of immortality through the medium of good and bad luck, led to the adoption of cinnabar as the philosopher’s stone, and thus to the construction of the whole system of alchemy. The plant of immortal life is spoken of in ancient Chinese literature at least a century before the mineral. In correspondence with the tree of life in Eden there was probably a Babylonian tradition which found its way to China shortly before Chinese writers mention the plant of immortality. The Chinese, not being navigators, must have got their ideas of the ocean which surrounds the world from those who were, and when they received a cosmography they would receive it with its legends.—_Nature._ * * * * *