40S On Ihc Seed of Plants. 



by very low ones, and raised tliem by degrees; bv wliicli means I 

 became n perfect judge of the truth of the drawings presented: 

 and as I always changed my glass according as mv object required, 

 (since without this many parts must have remained perfectly un- 

 known,) but by viewing the object thus very little enlarged, and 

 then increasing its size by slow degrees, I often drew tiie s])cci- 

 men as all the various powers presented, and thus compared 

 them together, considering each part in its variety of points and 

 varyings; — and it is astonishing of what use tills method was to 

 lue, in learning to comprehend the hairs in particular; since it 

 enabled me often to see the eiitrance of the liquid into the re- 

 tort, and to pursue it in its after-course in the veins of the plant; 

 and this means alone proved to me how many times the hairs 

 >vere altered, for the purpose of their preparing, analvsing, and 

 converting the various liquids of the atmosphere, as is beautifully 

 seen in the encumber hairs; — for can the fact bear another con- 

 struction ? When the seeds receive in that plant the juices of 

 t'lc atmosphere, they do not (as in the wheat and gourd) retain 

 the same formed hairs throughout tlie whole enlargement of the 

 flower ; but correct the juices, and prepare them for insertion 

 into the plant, through those hairs, by changing their form three 

 different times (see fig. 8, 9 and 10) : and this change is made 

 visible by an alteration of colour in the juice also. Thus the first 

 matter they receive from the atmosphere, and which flows into 

 the seeds through the hairs, is apparent water, bv means of a 

 simple retort, as at fig. 8 ; but as soon as the seeds are prepared 

 for receiving, the corculum, fig. 9, is dispensed to them ; and 

 though the liquid enters the hairs like water, it ciianges twice, 

 first to milky white and then to green ; and has one of tlie most 

 complicated hairs to bestow it on the plant ; — they then alter to 

 the atmospheric nutriment, and the juice becomes green, and 

 then a deep yellow within the fig. 10. Why should the form and 

 shape of the hairs be thus altered, if thev did not reanalyse the 

 juices and newly concoct them for the seeds? Why should the 

 colours alter as the juices are pressed fiom valve to valve, where 

 compression or explelion often takes place in producing the pro- 

 }icr ejfect, and rendering it fit for the seed ? If they require not 

 other preparations, why is the formation of each seed so different 

 in this respect, one demanding the same hair throughout the 

 whole formation of the sted (as in the gourd and wheat), while 

 the cucumber requires it to be so often changed? — The matter 

 speaks for itself. It is assuredly not possible to give another 

 interpretation to this phaenomenon, which has indeed been fol- 

 lowed by me from specimen to specinien, till the whole appears 

 so very simple and plain, that I am astonished a dissenting voice 

 can arise} — nor would it be io, but from the want of teeing in the 



incredulous 



