Thomsen has found that the heat of neutralization of the soluble bases of the alkalies and alkaline earths with sulphuric acid has a mean value of 31.150 c. within very narrow limits. When hydrochloric or nitric acid is employed, the value is 27.640 c., also within very narrow limits. Now, this agreement of the six bases in their behavior with sulphuric acid, much more of the seven bases with both HNO_{3} and HCl, is so close that it cannot be regarded as accidental, but, in the words of Meyer, the heat of formation of a salt in aqueous solution is a quantity made up of two parts, one a constant for the base, the other for the acid. But of the twenty salts thus formed, some are anhydrous in the solid state, others have water of crystallization, up to ten molecules in the case of Na_{2}SO_{4}. If water of crystallization exists in solution, it will be necessary to suppose that this agreement is accidental, which is absurd, as a glance at the probabilities will show. Thomsen himself expressly states that he regards the dissolved state as one in which the conditions are comparable for all substances; this would be impossible if water of crystallization were present. A still stronger proof is afforded by the "_avidity_" of Thomsen or the "_affinity_" of Ostwald; both have worked on the subject, taking no account of water of crystallization, and the results, e.g., for H_{2}SO_{4} and HCl with NaHO, where water of crystallization _may_ come in, are entirely confirmed by Ostwald's results on inversion and etherification, where there can be no water of crystallization. The proof is complete, water of crystallization cannot be attached to the salt in solution, or if it is, no heat is evolved on union more than with solvent water. The alternative is to suppose that the whole of the above thermo-chemical results are coincidences. * * * * * ALPINE FLOWERS IN THE PYRENEES. Bagneres De Luchon, in the department of the Haute Garonne, is a gay town of some 5,000 inhabitants. A friend told me that he once suffered so much from the heat there in June, that he determined never to go to the Pyrenees again. We were there the second week in June, and we suffered more from rain and cold, and were very glad of a fire in the evening. Except to the south, in the direction of the Porte de Venasque, one of the chief mule passes into Spain during summer, where there are fine snow-capped mountains, the scenery from the town is not grand, but it is within easy reach of the wildest parts of the Pyrenees.