20 DISCOVERY OF PHOTOSYNTHESIS CHAP. 2 



being qualified for this work by his previous occupation with the effects 

 of hght. He proceeded with the detailed description of his experiments 

 and conclusions, without specifically acknowledging the similarity (or 

 disagreement) between his results and those of Ingen-Housz. He sug- 

 gested, not unreasonably, that the importance of the subject makes its 

 study by two independent observers worth while. Ever after, he found 

 himself exposed to the merciless irony and clever insinuations of Ingen- 

 Housz, whose wrath would not be assuaged by the long-winded explana- 

 tions of the Swiss pastor. The subsequent publications of both adver- 



FiG. 4. — Jean Senebier. 



saries, the second \olume of Ingen-Housz' French edition of Experiments 

 on Vegetables (1789) and Senebier's Recherches siir Vinfluence de la lumiere 

 solaire pour metamorphoser Vair fixe en air pur par vegetation (1783) and 

 Experiences sur U action de la lumiere solaire dans la vegetation (1788), are 

 filled with acid polemics, and make sad reading. 



Senebier served his cause badly by the extreme profuseness of his 

 writing. In addition to the above-mentioned Memoires physico-chimiques 

 (1782), Recherches (1783), and Experiences (1788), he published a Physio- 

 logic vegetale in five volumes in 1800. The absence of adequate sum- 

 maries, and the trite rhetorics embellishing the extensive descriptions 



