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Zbc BO<Mci^ Jumping Bean of fIDeyicd: 





By Jabez Hogg, M.R.C.S., F.R.M.S., etc. 

 Plates XVI., XVIL, XVIII. 



'i 



O inconsiderable amount of public curiosity was 

 aroused throughout the winter of 1896 — 97 by the 

 introduction of a somewhat novel vegetable nut 

 from Mexico under the taking name of " the Jump- 

 ing Dean." This, so-called, " bean " was heralded 

 forth as " one of Nature's scientific wonders," 

 inasmuch as its peculiar movements "contradicted 

 all mechanical laws, as being an enclosed body 

 without external means of leverage, it was able of 

 its own volition to lift itself clear of the ground," and so forth. 

 Moreover, a writer in a widely-circulating paper, in a moment of 

 ecstatic excitement, described their movements in high-flown 

 words as follows : — " I watched their antics with staring eye-balls 

 and a heaving chest. While they danced round the plate on 

 which they were placed, I danced round the table, jump for jump," 

 etc. After a perusal of some few of many like panegyrics which 

 appeared in the press about these wonderful " beans," no one will 

 be surprised to find, on their first appearance at the *' World's 

 Fair," Chicago, the nuts were " eagerly snapped up at a dollar 

 apiece." 



It is almost needless to say that the whole of the fabulous and 

 sensational statements published at that time about these so-called 

 " jumping-beans " were very wide of the mark. Nevertheless, 

 they were received with so much credulity that all one's friends 

 purchased them and put questions about them. The " bean " was 

 said to be the production of a Mexican tree, the name of which 

 appears to be rather far-fetched — Carpo-capsa Saltiians, and which 

 is certainly not the true botanical name of the plant that produces 

 the so-called ** bean," recently discovered in a morass half a mile 

 square, in the neighbourhood of Alamos, the fruit of which on 

 ripening falls to the ground and splits up into three equal parts, 

 somewhat triangular in shape, two containing small black seeds 



International Journal of Microscopy and Natural Science. 

 Third Series. Vol. VII. w 



