Mr. Savtssunv's Account of ia Storm of Salt. 289 
which it is well knowin: ripe in fields dedi open to the 
sea. ip vod Md SGF ‘TIA et ete EG ipag x 
. de uot find bdhabs any: satidebab of thesé Salt W indi; bi lien 
panien recorded;. yet I fear they: visit us: annually... Last: year, 
31804, I again observed one on the 11th. and 12th of: February, 
Vhile at Norwich with our President: this also reached Middle- © 
sex, most of the Peas which had previously survived the cold of 
14 degrees of Fahrenheit' thermometer, being on those nights 
cut off under a much higher temperature. 
_ That it is the Salt merely, and not the Cold, which produces 
these deleterious effects upon so great a number of vegetables, is 
fully confirmed by a similar wind noticed by Sir Joseph Banks, 
some years ago, in Lincolnshire: it was early in September, and 
blew very steadily for four or five days due east, when every leaf 
on that side of the trees and hedges became brown. Were a wind 
thus loaded with the spray of salt-water to blow during the 
months of May and June, when vegetation is in activity, it is 
difficult to calculate the extent of the mischief it would occa- 
sion. All persons who have had the care of plants at sea, know 
that, whenever the wind is strong enough to turn over the tops of 
the waves into what the sailors call White Caps, | it is necessary 
to keep the plants. closely covered up, the air being then so im- 
pregnated with salt, that, if they be only a short time exposed 
to it, they will perish. 
. To the above account I d I could. add any satisfactory 
explanation c of the manner in which Sea. Salt acts upon the tex- 
ture of vegetables. Is. it by stopping | the pores of the leaves, 
and preventing perspiration ? ? Can the wax which covers so 
many maritime plants. with a fine glaucous hue, or the woolly 
ppbescenge, so ;panapignogs, upon a still greater number, .con- 
VOL. VIII. wc aT assi _ tribute 
