INl'LUENCE OF ELECTRICITY ON VEGETATION. 89 



destroy us so cruelly. Never troubled by fear, never tormented 

 by ambition, or devoured by ennui, without being a prey to the 

 sad effects which arise from these evils, they fulfil their peaceful 

 and happy destiny. The accidents which afflict them are the 

 necessary consequences of those destructive causes with which 

 the world is filled ; but fortunately not possessing that imagina- 

 tion which torments us so ingeniously, and those passions which 

 tyrannize over us, they are exempt from that numerous army of 

 evils and maladies of all kinds which assail us on every side. 

 They have none of those spasms or vapours, those deirliums or 

 insanities which we so frequently create ; again, the remedies 

 which are applied to them are more efficacious : and often by 

 the strength and goodness of their constitution, even without the 

 assistance of human industry, they surmount the obstacles which 

 would have vanquished them." 



The number of new experimental facts adduced by M. Ber- 

 tholon in this curious book is comparatively small, and it is easy 

 to see that his enthusiasm and lively imagination frequently 

 carried away his judgment, and caused him to view facts in a 

 very questionable light whilst collecting arguments in support 

 of his favourite views. He, however, made the first attempt to 

 collect and arrange the electrical phenomena of nature, and the 

 results of the experiments of electricians, in a methodical and 

 systematic form ; pointing out the manner in which electricity 

 may probably be the real cause of many of the unexplained phe- 

 nomena of vegetable and animal life. 



Immediately after the publication of Bertholon's work, another 

 treatise appeared on the same subject by Gardini, of Turin ; and 

 likewise papers bearing upon the influence of electricity on ve- 

 getation, by Achard and De Saussure. The last of these* was, 

 in fact, little more than a favourable critique of Bertholon's book, 

 and an expression of his own conviction that electricity is the 

 great moving power of vegetable life — the agent which influences 

 their development and growth. The observations of Achard are 

 contained in several essays : on the electricity of rain, snow, and 

 hail ; on electrifying fluids ; on germination, &c. ;"|" and likewise 

 in papers on the influence of electricity on the growth of vege- 

 tables, in which he confirms the results of preceding philosophers ; 

 and on the influence of electricity in promoting the fermenta- 

 tion and putrefaction of vegetable and animal matters. He 

 found that both negative and positive electricity accelerated the 



* De Saussure, sur I'Electricite' des Ve'getaux. Eozier, 1784, ii. p. 290. 

 t F. C. Achard, Physicalische und Chemische Abhandlungen, vol. 

 p. 784. 



