14 Professor Macaire on the 



my conviction that this is the best method, and my regret at 

 seeing it almost everywhere abandoned. In our times, the 

 number of Societies and Scientific Journals is so great, the 

 fear of being anticipated and the facility of publication are so 

 urgent, that scarcely has a subject of investigation been entered 

 upon, when the first results are displayed with the greatest 

 precipitation. The object having thus lost its freshness 

 and interest, becomes fatiguing ; what is newest and most 

 exciting having already been published, the long and mo- 

 notonous researches necessary to be followed in order to reach 

 the remoter ramifications, are neglected ; a preference is given 

 to something else ; and life is thus passed merely in throwing 

 a glance upon every thing. Formerly, he who had opened a 

 new vein in the mine of science considered himself under an 

 obligation to follow and work it to the end ; his work was 

 complete, required time and patience, and the result was, not 

 a memoir, but a book, — sometimes even a good book, like that 

 which Theodore de Saussure produced in 1804. 



In this work, entitled Chemical Besearches on Vegetation^ 

 the author gives a close and vigorous analysis of all the bear- 

 ings of the problem ; and, after describing minutely his mode 

 of procedure, his experiments, and the results he had obtained, 

 in order that the latter might be verified, he proceeds to shew 

 distinctly the functions of gases and water in vegetable life, 

 and lays the foundations of the true doctrine respecting the 

 influence of the soil, a part of the subject so skilfully developed 

 in our own day by Liebig. He commences with the study of 

 the chemical phenomena which accompany the first develop- 

 ment of plants, — that is to say, the germination of seeds. He 

 shews, by direct experiments, that the seeds cannot germinate 

 without water, but that this water must, besides, contain oxy- 

 gen gas, or be in contact with that gas. Applying, in order 

 to discover the mode in which this gas acts, the rigorous 

 methods of analysis which he had never neglected, Theodore de 

 Saussure ascertained that all the oxygen absorbed by the seeds 

 during germination is converted into carbonic acid, and that 

 the influence of this gas would thus appear to be limited to 

 carrying off a portion of the carbon accumulated in their com- 

 position. These quantities of oxygen, necessary for germina- 



