]90 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



there were five earpellary leaves in each apple, and on the margin of each 

 leaf there were either one or two occasionally three matured pips; but 

 on each side of each leaf were little brown tubercles in number sufficient 

 to make up (4) four pips in each cell, two on either side counting 

 mature seeds or rudimentary immature seeds. 



One hundred apples with Gve carpels to each would give (500) five 

 hundred cells or earpellary leaves, and each leaf having four seeds or 

 pip mature or immature, would give a total of 2,000 pips that would be 

 the proper full number of seeds; but the results of the examination gave 

 only 972 mature seeds, of which number (556) five hundred and fifty- 

 six were on the right side of the leaf, and 416 on the left, or 48.6 per 

 cent, of the total number grew to full maturity as seeds of these 556 — 

 57.09 per cent, were grown on the right side of the leaf, 42.8 per cent, 

 nearly on the left. 



These numbers are all too small to make a general average of so 

 large a subject, but they are so striking as to call attention to the subject 

 and induce further observations in the same direction. 



'Now, if these pips be examined in the apple more closely, they will 

 be found attached: first, the lowest, on the right side of the earpellary 

 leaf, next a little higher on the left side, the third a little higher on the 

 right side, and last, for there are seldom more than four, on the left side 

 and a little higher, as the num.bers that come to maturity. 



Prom these observations it seems then that there is sometliing ap- 

 parently determining the why; these happenings are as they are, and it 

 is the business of science to find out the why and wherefore for every- 

 thing. 



In the present instance there is no apparent reason why one side 

 should have the preference over the other, but if the cause be hidden the 

 more reason to search for it. 



Suggestion or hypothesis might be made there are so many notes 

 of arrangement, and motion, in the direction of the hands of a clock 

 that thoughts are directed to some cosmic influence which appears to 

 dominate both animal and vegetable growth, and possibly also mineral 

 grovrth amongst crystalline substances. 



Amongst such forces that appear on the surface the rotation of the 

 earth itself, its alteration of heat and cold every (24) twenty-four hours 

 by exposure to and absence of the heat of the sun's rays. The magneti- 

 zation of the atmospheric oxygen thereby, producing a diurnal variation 

 of the needle. There is the negative condition of the earth and the posi- 

 tive condition electrically speaking of the upper atmosphere keeping up 

 a constant current of differing electrienl conditions, and the eflFect of a 



