is) aa SEVENTH REPORT—1837, 
have germinated, and Marchantia has grown of itself within the 
lass. 
I also obtained a hollow glass globe of 18 inches diameter, 
and with an aperture sufficient to admit my hand for planting 
the specimens. A variety of ferns and lycopodiums were then 
set in the soil, which was properly moistened with water. This 
having been done, the aperture was covered with sheet India- 
rubber, its attachment to the glass being made perfectly air-tight. 
No change of air could take place except by percolation through 
the India-rubber, which was every day forced either outwards 
as the air within the glass was heated and expanded, or inwards 
in the reverse circumstances. These ferns grew probably as 
well as they would have done in a greenhouse or hothouse. 
They were all foreign, and some of them requiring a great heat. 
Several have ripened seed. 
Mr. Ward's Report. 
In order to render the account of my experiments on the 
growth of plants without open exposure to air intelligible to those 
who may not have seen the published statements, I will briefly 
mention the way in which these experiments originated. At- 
tached to botany from my early youth, I had endeavoured to ° 
grow many plants, and particularly ferns and mosses, in and 
about my house, but being surrounded by numerous manufactories 
and enveloped in their smoke, all my endeavours proved sooner 
or later unavailing, owing to the necessity which I imagined to 
exist for exposing my plants more or less freely to the air. A 
simple incident at length opened my eyes, and I was led to 
reflect a little more deeply upon the subject. About eight or 
nine years ago I placed in a wide-mouthed bottle, covered with 
a lid, the chrysalis of a sphinx, buried in some loose mould. 
A week before the insect assumed its perfect form, I observed 
on the surface of the mould a seedling grass and fern. I saw 
that they required no water, as the mould continued always 
equally moist, from the condensation of the water on the in- 
ternal surface of the glass, and it remainedto be proved how 
far that change of air, which must of necessity result from 
every change of temperature, would be sufficient for the pur- 
poses of vegetable life. At all events I had gained two points, 
a continually humid atmosphere, free from mechanical impurities. 
I placed the bottle outside one of my windows, and finding that 
the plants grew well, I procured some hymenophyllum from 
Tunbridge Wells, planted it in a similar bottle, and had the 
pleasure to find that it likewise grew as well as in its native 
