Beck on Salt Storms, &c. 393 
from the action of the salt air, as there are many of them 
which do not possess it. Besides is it not rational to con- 
clude, from the large quantities of soda which are always 
found in sea ‘plants, that this saline-atmosphere is rather pro- 
pitious than otherwise to their growth, and that it proves inju- 
rious only to plants accustomed to the pada) wired air of the 
Jand. 
Again, I do not think that it can be explained by supposing, 
that the salt is absorbed into the plant, and thus acts as a poi- 
sonous substance. We know, that in land plants which are 
cultivated in the neighborhood of the sea, salt is absorbed 
through their roots.* It must of course circulate with the 
juices through the whole plant; and is in these cases the 
leaves are not destroyed by it. 
The most plausible method of cplabahige it sppéats to be 
this: that the salt, by its irritating or corrosive power, destroys 
the small vessels in the leaf which are neconents for the cit 
culation going on in it during health. 
Dr. Darwin has ingeniously shown the satooy between the 
functions of the leaves of plants andthe lungs of animals. If 
this be admitted, it will not be difficult to account for the 
action of salt upon leaves. This substance, when taken into 
the stomach, proves not merely innocuous, but wholesome ; 
but when accidentally introduced into the lungs, irritation, 
inflammation, and. death are thé consequences. So with 
plants—when admitted into them in combination with their 
juices, it may be harmless; but when applied to the lungs or 
leaves, death ensues, 
* To prove that salt is absorbed into land plants antes near the sea, the 
following facts, for which I am indebted to my friend, Dr. D. V. Knevels, are 
coriclusive, The fruit of those cocoa-nut trees which grow near the seashore 
in the West-Indies is generally found to have a saltish taste ; and even the milk 
in the nut is perceptibly impregnated with it. Those trees, on the contrary, 
ow in the ey beyond the influence of salt water, have their fruit 
sagt fresh and sw 
aunties ditt me, that in a plantation of his father’s, in a 
West- a casi’ on the seashore, a whole crop of the cane was Te 
unfit for the purpose of making sugar, in consequence of the great ty of 
salt which it had imbibed. 
