424 Prize Quejlion. 



the peach, and the fleek red fmoothnefs of the nectarine; 

 fuppofed to be a lufus naturae, but probably is rather the 

 fportings of art, than of nature, and which perhaps will be 

 the caufe why we (hall in future fee many other fuch vege- 

 table wonders, which, as I have lhewn, were known to our 

 ancefiors. 



Refpe&ing my promifed. communication concerning the 

 •{ilk-worm, I muft beg leave to delay it, until I have ascer- 

 tained for certain the difference of the Chinefe, from the 

 mulberry trees, cultivated here ; the former being, I have rea- 

 fon to believe, only a fhrub, with a very broad leaf, and 

 dying down to the ground every year, fpringing up the next. 



INTELLIGENCE. 



LEARNED SOCIETY. 



J. HE directors of the Imperial Academy of the Searchers 

 into Nature, have propofed the following queftions as Sub- 

 jects for prizes. 



I. In which of the known parts of vegetable productions, 

 the bark {cortex) , inner bark (liber), wood (plburnum et 

 lignum), pith (medulla), does the fap.afcend? Does a reflux 

 of the fap towards the root, proportioned to the afcent, take 

 place in the bark or the pith, or in both ? And, if this be 

 the cafe, by what way is it conveyed from the interior parts 

 to the bark ? What courfe does it, in particular, take to pafs 

 through the leaves to the bark ? 



The Academy wiflics, in particular, that the motion of 

 the fap in the bark upwards may be proved or refuted ; both 

 by a careful repetition, varying the circumftances, of the ex- 

 periments which have alreadv been adduced as a proof of it, 

 and by a Sufficient number of well chofep and appropriate 

 new experiments. The belt founded experiments, which 

 prove the afcent of fap in plants, have been enumerated by 

 Duhamelj in fbyjique des Arbres, b. v. chap. 2, art. 7— 11, 

 6 and 



