5198 STUDIE9 OF NATURE. 



juices, fuch as cherries, peaches, melons ; and, as 

 Winter approaches, thofe which warm and com- 

 fort by their oils, fuch as the almond and the 

 walnut. Certain Naturalifls have confidered even 

 the ligneous (hells of thefe fruits, as a prefervative 

 againft the cold of the gloomy feafon ; but thefe 

 are, as we have feen, the means of floating and of 

 navigating. Nature employs others, with which 

 we are not acquainted, for preferving the fub- 

 fiances of fruits, from the impreflions of the air. 

 For example, (he preferves, through the whole 

 Winter, many fpecies of apples and pears, which 

 have no other covering than a pellicle fo very thin, 

 that it is impoffible to determine how fine it is. 



Nature has placed other vegetables in humid 

 and in dry fituations, the qualities of which are 

 inexplicable on the principles of our Phyfics, but 

 which admirably harmonize with the neceffities of 

 the men who inhabit thofe places. Along the wa- 

 ter-fide grow the plants and the trees which are 

 the dryed, the lighted, and, confequently, the bed 

 adapted to the purpofe of eroding the dream. 

 Such are reeds, which are hollow, and rufhes, which 

 are filled with an inflammable marrow. It requires 

 but a very moderate bundle of rufhes to bear the 

 weight of a very heavy man upon the water. On 

 the banks of the lakes of the North are produced 

 thofe enormous birch- trees, the bark of a fingle 



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