Bed o Col. VELLEY's Remarks on the Nature ~ 
enabled. to vary, without difuniting, the general principles of her 
eftablifhed laws. “She difdains," as Mr. Lightfoot has finely ob- 
ferved, * to be limited by the fyftematic rules of' human invention. 
She never. makes any fudden. ftarts from one clafs or genus to an- 
other, but is regularly progreffive in all her works, uniting the va- 
rious links in the chain of beings by infenfible connections.” . 
= We have lately feen this myfterious fubject difcuffed by no ordi- 
nary inveftigator of Nature's laws*. The principle upon which this 
difcerning | naturalift proceeds, appears to be well founded; and if he - 
fails in any refpe&t, it is by overítraining his theory t to make it qua- 
drate with the Linnean doctrine of florefcence. From this circum- 
ftance. principally, he has, i in my opinion, expofed his argument to 
fome objections which may not ‘eafily be removed. He commences 
his effay with a concife and perfpicuous furvey of the exifting theo- 
ries laid down by Reaumur, Gmelin, and Gertner. And as the two 
laft of thofe authors maintain that a yerya numerous branch of the 
Algas do noti 1 any inftance derive : theirc origin. from. feeds, but folely 
from proliferous ; gems, or buds, he oppofes the doétrine with much 
ingenuity; not grounding his opinion merely upon the laws of ana- 
logy, but upon a fcientific and an anatomical inquiry into the natu- 
ral ftruéture and- did: dup as were as TURGON of thefe Cor- 
| puícles. 
Having, as far as the nature of the fubject would admit, ti: 
blithe d thefe points fo confonant with found philofophy, he : pro- 
eeds. to account for that peculiar procefs | fo which the feeds them- 
felves owe their i origin ; ; and this he confiders as an actual ftate of 
florefcence. “If pollen,” continues this author, * under the fhape 
of — be unfit RE TENNIS in TR water; if A ature : has taken 
* Mr. Chien de Serra on the Fru&ification of the fubmerfed: Aes in The Philofophi- 
-cal Tranfactions for the pho 1796, p.494. .. 
a particular 
