On Sir H. Davy's Safe-lamp for Mines. 189 



Fig. 6 and 7- — 6 being the manner in which the platformi 

 Rppears, or apertures through which the flowers pass ; and 

 fig. 7. shows the buds witliout the platform : and fig. 6 and 7 

 both together at AA. 



Fig. 8, 9, and 10, are the three specimens, showing the verv 

 curious manner the folds of the thin matter will draw in : an4 

 fig. S*, 9*, and 10*, are specimens of the root of the aonanthe, 

 the angelica, and the kieracium spondylium ; out of which the 

 foregoing figures were taken. 



Fig. li. and 11* are the specimens showing the manner the 

 line of life is formed, when folded in trees either so or iu fig. 5: 

 and 1 1* the manner it is folded in herbaceous plants. 



Fig. 12. Manner in which flowers mount in the stem of her- 

 baceous plants : first in little bouquets, then collecting in large, 

 as at eee, when the stem lengthens, and they open. 



Fig. 13, showing theapertures through which the flowers mount/. 



Fig. 14, the stem of the leaf of the poplars. 



Perhaps I had most wisely avoided giving the figures described 

 at figs. S, 9 and 10, as carrying sohttle probability in their ap- 

 pearance; — but when 1 first began to dissect and imitate the 

 vegetable tribe, I most absolutely determined that 1 would li- 

 terally draw all I saw, without exaggeration and without dimi- 

 nishing the objects presented to my sight, let them be ever so 

 extraordinary. No one had before taken a review of these ob- 

 jects, — all that was supposed to be known, was very little more 

 than conjecture, except the seeds : no one had attempted to 

 take the specimens progressivsly — what the interior was, there- 

 fore, " was (till now) a secret;" and after sixteen years constant 

 dissection I cannot be accused of ignorance. With this observa- 

 tion I leave it to public opinion. 



XXXVIII. On Sir H. Daw's Safe-lamp for Mines. By 

 John Gkorgk Children, Esq. F.R.S. 



To Mr. Tilloch. 



Sir, — i READ with some degree of indignation, in the Annals 

 of Philosophy for July last, a paper by a .Mr. Longmire, calling 

 itself Remarks, &ic. on Sir Humphry Davy's Safe-lamp for theCol- 

 liers ; and I addressed a letter to Dr. Thomson on the subject. 

 That letter the learned Editor of the above Journal has thought 

 fit to suppress ; — nor should I have considered it worth while to 

 take even this brief notice of so weak an attempt to injure one 

 of the moit important inventions with wliich enlightened genius 

 hub ever ble>-sed the world, but have left it to peiish in its own 



in>i!i- 



