326 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 17^, 



their nourishment ; for when the 

 root of a tree or plant changes its 

 course, on account of meeting with 

 a rock, or with a hard, stiti', and 

 barren clay, or other object that 

 does not afford it proper nourish- 

 ment, it is owing not to any dere- 

 liction of these objects, but to no 

 attraction from absorption acting in 

 that direction, but one from a more 

 fa\-ourable soil. The smallness of 

 the resistance of these fluids cannot 

 be urged against this theory : the 

 motion to be explained is only the 

 tendency of the nascent shoots, no 

 one having pretended that the solid 

 wood could alter its direction _; and 

 this power, however feeble, is al- 

 ways acting. I am not ignorant, 

 that these are not the only motions 

 which are thought to announce the 

 perceptivity of plants. The mo- 

 tions observed in the stamina and 

 other parts at the time of fecunda- 

 tio;i, the spiral direction of the stems 

 of some, * the use of the cirrhi 

 of others, and the bursting of the 

 capsules, have all, with manyothcr 

 powers been thought to lavour this 

 opinion. These are but powers 

 nature has brstowed upon them for 

 their preservation and production, 

 which can no more be considered 

 as the consequence of volition, than 

 the fall oi' thcT leaves at stated pe- 

 riods, their growth and decay, which 

 liave never been considered as the 

 consequence of mind, any more 

 than the increase er destruction of 



animal bodies, the efficient cause of 

 which may for ever remain unr 

 known. 



When all is considered, I think 

 we shall place this opinion amongst 

 the many ingenious flights of the 

 imagination, and soberly follow that 

 blind impulse which leads us natu- 

 rally to give sensation and percep- 

 tivity to animal life, and to deny it 

 to vej:;etabies ; and so still say with 

 Aristotle, and our great master 

 Linnaeus — Vegetabilia crescunt et 

 vivunt ; aiumalia crescunt, v'wujit, ct 

 sentiunt. 



and inquiries made 

 concerning the coal-. 



Observations 

 upon and 



works atJ'i' hitehaven in the county 

 of Cumberland, in the year 1793. 

 £y Joseph Fisher; M. D fellow 

 of the royal physical society in 

 Edinburgh. From the Trans- 

 actions of the Royal Irish Aca,' 

 demy. 



IN the neighbourhood of White- 

 haven are two coal-works or 

 collieries,- called Howguill and 

 Whingu'll. The first lies on the 

 south-west part of the town, and 

 the present works ex'.end from (he 

 town towards the south about two 

 miles and a half, reaching nearly to 

 the valley called Sandwith, and in 

 breadth about one mile and a half, 

 viz. from a rivulet called ih? Pow- 

 beck on the east side to about nine 



* I have rcafl, and heard it more than once a':'=eitfd, that the Lonicrra and other 

 plants with thd caulis vcbtbilis, which are twisted either d^itrorsum. or sinisl.rnrsum, 

 can change this natural direction; so that when two Lonicerce, or two branches of 

 the same Lomrcra, meet, the one torns to the right, the other to the left, that they 

 may siford to each otlier a better support. This is a mistake, and, if true, would only 

 counteract the intcnticn of rature, which is a mutual support; for this would pre- 

 vent their uniting ,~u firmly together. Some of the cirrhi of the Bryonia, i:c. turn 

 to the richt, otlicis to the left, but do not accommodate one another. 



hundred 



