THORNTON'S NEW ILLUSTRATION OF LINNEUS 'S SEXUAL SYSTEM. BYT 
turition may now be said to be performed : 
and as the chord becomes in the child a liga- 
ment, so the pod assumes a new appearance, 
and becomes a dry husk ; and its valves sepa- 
rating, the seeds are dropped from within its 
bosom, which may not be unaptly stiled a 
second birth. a 
«* An objection may, perhaps, be started 
to this doctrine, from the consideration of 
succulent and stony fruits; but these, in 
their early stage, have the same organization 
as pericarps. 
«s We have an example of this in the pear 
and the mengo; and it may be observed, 
that the deposit ‘of hard, woody, or stony 
particles, does not take place till a consider- 
able time after the full formation of the 
embryo. Young filberts, or the walnats 
which we use for pickles, are also very 
familiar examples of the soft state of the 
early shell. 
The woody shell may therefore be con- 
sidered as a true pericarp; and, as the man- 
ner in which the kernel is able to escape 
from its inclosure is a matter of no small 
wonder to the contemplaters of nature, it 
certainly deserves our present consideration. 
«< Por the escape of the seed, the hard 
shell, acted on by heat and moisture, and 
the rarefaction of the air within, and force 
of the struggling embryos, endeavouring * to 
burst their cearments,’ opens ‘ its marble 
jaws,’ and this with a facility exceeding 
eommon apprehension. Shy: 
<« For this purpose shells are like pericarps, 
which first seem of one valve, one entire 
piece, scarcely shewing even a line of sepa- 
ration, and then divide, as the occasion re- 
quires, into several different compartments, 
or pieces, but more usually into two, which 
might be conjectured from observing the 
natural division that takes place in walnuts, 
apricots, and other stone fruits.” 
Confusion worse confounded ! 
How shall we understand the begin- 
ning of the second sentence, “ hence 
the pericarp or column in its centre?” 
Is it the or explanatory or disjunctive ? 
If explanatory, the whole and one of its 
parts are represented as the same thing ; 
and this, it cannot be denied, is in our 
author’s characteristic manner. He 
has already taught us, that the division 
of a bean may be converted into the 
divisions of its pod, the case or covering 
_in which it is contained ; or to adopt a 
familiar illustration, that a man’s leg 
and thigh may become his stockings and 
breeches. But it would be uncandid to 
suppose him always blundering. Let 
the or then be disjunctive, and let us un- 
derstand Dr. Vhornton to mean, that 
sometimes the pericarp,,and sometimes 
the column in its centre, serves the office 
of placenta to the embryos, sull there is 
’ 
no clear discrimination between the 
whole, and part of that whole. And 
with this interpretation, to what shall we 
refer the plural pronoun, them? ‘The 
word embryos is the only preceding plu- 
ral substantive; but the embryos are, 
in this case, the seeds themselves, and 
though it is too often true of the human 
species in a figurative sense, we never 
heard of any inanimate being that was 
either literally or metaphorically attach- 
ed to itself. The plural pronoun must, 
therefore, be referred to the pericarp 
and its central column, taken: collec- 
tively, and the or should have been and, 
But still there is the same want of dis- 
tinction between a part and the whole; 
for the columella or central column is 
considered by all botanists as part of 2 
capsule which is one species of pericarp. 
Despairing to make either sense or 
prammar of this part of the sentence, 
let us pursue the suggested analogy as 
it is further illustrated. 
«* The thread, or pedicle, bears an 
analogy to the umbilical chord of the 
foetus, and as after animal parturition 
is performed, the umbilical chord be- 
comes in the child the suspensory liga- 
ment of the liver, so”’ Who would 
not expect to hear that the thread, or pe- 
dicle still retains its general form and 
firmness, and having discharged one im- 
portant office, is made permanently sub- 
servient to another? But we are told no 
such thing. The thread or pedicle is 
moreover well known to wither, and in 
a short time to lose the whole of its 
vegetable organization.” What then? 
«So the pod assumes a new appearance, 
and becomes a dry husk, and its valves 
separating, the seeds are dropped from 
within its bosom, which may not be un- 
aptly stiled a second birth.” Thus, by 
a dexterous legerdemain, the pedicle en- 
tirely disappears, and we are presented 
with the pod, which our author has al- 
ready told us,’serves the office of a pla- 
centa to the embryo seeds, and which he 
now says, bears an analogy to the umbili- 
cal chord; but he must be a skilful jug- 
gler indeed to render the deception com- 
pleat, and make us imagine, that either 
one or the other of them resembles it in 
becoming a dry husk after the time of 
parturition, and permitting, “ by the’se- 
paration ofits valves, the new-born child 
to drop from within its bosom, so as to 
receive what may not be unaptly ee 
second birth.”” So unfortunate is Dr. 
"thornton in his attempt to “ compare 
