460 Vegetation.— Safely Lamp. 
has always inclined to the opinion I have advocated—to me no 
Jonger a problem. ‘The air from the coast of Guinea was, I be- 
lieve, submitted to Dr. Beddoes, not to Sir H. Davy. The 
quotation from that able naturalist Brisseau Mirbel stands re- 
commended by its own merits, and demands no eulogy from me. 
It would have been more wise and becoming to have treated it 
with the respect it was so well entitled to receive. The compensa- 
tion provided by this transportation finds a thousand beautiful 
analogies amid the harmonies of nature. The witticism which 
wields a term employed by myself calls for no reply,—the expres- 
sion “ floods of oxygen” I see no cause to change. There are 
many incongruities obtaining in experiments of this nature, aris- 
ing, it may be, either from the unnatural position of the plant 
_ secluded from the influences which minister to the healthy forms of 
this curious organization, or the imperfect and faulty eudiome-' 
trical test. It requires no mean judgement to wield the (e. g. 
the nitrous gas) test, so as to balance the results aright. The ex- 
periments hinted at, on one occasion, by Mr. Brande, would seem 
to intimate that some plants preduce the same effects on atmo- 
spheric air as animals, while others exhibit no alteration, and a 
third class refine the medium. It is impossible to comprehend 
these anomalies, and I have merely adverted to this gentleman’s 
results, in order to show that inaccuracy must exist somewhere. 
I have no right to assume, far less to decide. On a future ocea- 
sion I shall renew the subject: meantime, in answer to the posi- 
tion that plants effect the same change upon the atmosphere as 
animals, I may observe that ANIMALS constantly and wilhoul any 
intermission enhance a noxious atmosphere, while PLANTS emit 
the destructive gas only at night, when, succumbing by its native 
Weight, being cooled by the dews of even, it sinks harmless on 
the bosom of the earth. But as a conclusive set-off, meantime, to 
these znatural experiments on imprisoned vegetation, I have 
to adduce testimony of the highest authority,—that from a series 
of repeated experiments made at Madras, it was invariably 
found, that the LanD breeze contained FIVE per cent. more oxy- 
gen than the sea breeze. 
You have, Sir, added a note to the appendage of the inter- 
cepting partition of wire gauze; but you forgot for the moment, 
the change of character exhibited by flame when so bisected, as 
deduced from the experiments of Sir H. Davy and Mr. G. O. 
Sym, and which I have varied in results of my own :—eaiension' . 
of surface might be a better expression of my meaning. It may 
still, indeed, be doubted whether the term cooling is appro- 
priately applied, notwithstanding the highly ingenious and mul- 
tiplied experiments of Sir H. Davy. I would not be deemed a 
plagiarist, and in Justice to myself must assume the priority of 
attaching 
