376 Scientific Intelligence. — Botany. 



of this plant are not less than the ^^^ih of an inch in diameter, 

 a plant of the above size will contain no less than 475000,000,000 

 cellules; so that, supposing it to have grown in the course of 

 twelve hours, its cellules must have been developed at the rate 

 of nearly 4,000,000,000 per hour, or of more than 96,000,000 

 in a minute ! * and, when we consider that every one of these 

 cellules must be composed of innumerable molecules, each of 

 which is again composed of others, we are perfectly overwhelmed 

 with the minuteness and number of the parts employed in this 

 single production of nature. 



23. How to make Eatable lood from Wood.\ — To make 

 wood-flower in perfection, according to Professor Autenrieth, 

 the wood, after being thoroughly stripped of its bark, is to be 

 sawed transversely into disks of about an inch in diameter. The 

 saw-dust is to be preserved, and the disks are to be beaten to 

 fibres in a pounding-mill. The fibres and saw-dust, mixed to- 

 gether, are next to be deprived of every thing harsh and bitter 

 which is soluble in water, by boiling them, where fuel is abun- 

 dant, or by subjecting them for a longer time to the action of 

 cold water, which is easily done by enclosing them in a strong 

 sack, which they only half fill, and beating the sack with a stick, 

 or treading it with the feet in a rivulet. The whole is then to 

 be completely dried in the sun, or by fire, and repeatedly ground 

 in a flour-mill. The ground wood is next baked into small flat 

 cakes, with water, I'endered slightly mucilaginous by the addi- 

 tion of some decoction of linseed, mallow stalks and leaves, hme- 

 tree bark, or any other such substance. Professor Autenrieth 

 prefers marsh-mallow roots, of which one ounce renders eighteen 

 quarts of water sufficiently mucilaginous, and these serve to form 

 four pounds and a half of wood-flour into cakes. These cakes 

 are baked until they are brown on the surface. After this, 

 they are broken to pieces, and again ground, until the flour pass 

 through a fine boul ting-cloth, and upon the fineness of the flour 

 does its fitness to make bread depend. The flour of a hard wood 

 such as beech, requires the process of baking and grinding to be 

 repeated. Wood-flour does not ferment so readily as wheaten- 



• Introd. to Bol. p. "}. 



■f In a former number of this Journal we gave some details in regard to 

 bread made from wood and from bark. 



