82 ME. SOLLY ON THE 



would pour out in a continuous stream when the vessel was 

 electrified. The cause of this curious phenomenon was investi- 

 gated by Nollet, who found that although a much larger quan- 

 tity of fluid appeared to issue from the aperture when electrified 

 than had previously done, yet in truth, except wlien the tube 

 was very minute, the velocity of the stream was hardly at all 

 accelerated. Whilst occupied with these experiments, he heard 

 of those made at Edinburgh by Dr. Maimbray, and consequently 

 naturally thought that the effects he had been studying in capil- 

 larj"^ glass tubes might have some connexion with the circulation 

 of the sap in plants, and hence produce the increased growth 

 which had been observed by Maimbray. His first experi- 

 ments were made on fruits, green plants, and moist sponges, 

 which, after careful weighing, were electrified for four or five 

 hours, and then weighed again ; he invariably found that evapo- 

 ration had been considerably augmented by the action of the 

 electricity. He next proceeded to electrify seeds and young 

 growing plants.* In October, 1747, he took two small wooden 

 bowls filled with exactly the same kind of earth, and in all re- 

 spects alike, and sowed with similar mustard seed ; forty-eight 

 hours afterwards the one bowl was placed in connexion with 

 the electrical machine and electrified for six hours, whilst the 

 other was kept in the same room, but at a distance from the 

 machine ; after two days several of the seeds in the electrified 

 bowl had come up, whilst no alteration had taken place in the 

 other ; the following day, nine of the electrified seeds had come 

 up, none of the non-electrified seeds ; and this superiority was 

 kept up, the bowl being electrified every day for more than a 

 week, when the plants in the former were ten inches high, those 

 in the latter not more than a quarter of an inch. This experi- 

 ment he repeated, and varied in diflferent ways, by taking other 

 seeds, &c. ; the same results were always obtained. The elec- 

 trified plants, however, generally appeared rather weaker than 

 those which had not been electrified. 



In England, the experiments of Maimbray appear to have ex- 

 cited less interest. A paper by Mr. Browning was read before the 

 Royal Society, in 1747, on the effects of electricity on vege- 

 tables,! in which he describes his own experiments as well as those 

 of a Mr. Baker, who electrified a myrtle at the Duke of Mon- 

 tague's, at Ditton ; but their observations are entirely confined to 

 the divergence of the electrified leaves, and the beautiful appear- 

 ance of the aura proceeding from the points of the leaves when 



* Memoires de TAcad^mie, 1748. — Recherches sur I'Electricite, 1749, 

 p. 342. t Phil. Trans., 1748. 



