alleged to take place in Plants. 247 
this state to Sir W. Herschel as one of the figures taken for 
perspiration, and he turned from me almost indignantly, saying 
that no one could take that for perspiration. _ But when I showed 
him the white balls and convinced him they were the same by 
some half changed, he altered his opinion, and was forced to 
touch them to convince himself they were not uncovered bub- 
bles of water. 
How wonderful is it to see that these diminutive delicate forms 
containing all the dangerous mixtures our strongest glasses can 
hardly endure, should yet bear the wind and weather, and never 
burst with the frost, though full of liquid! I have often taken 
them when the vegetable has been much injured by a sudden 
frost, to examine the hairs; and though they proved in general | 
half empty, vet they had none of them burst, but the juices are 
often seen running up and down the hairs in a strange agitation. 
They often boil over indeed, but never break. 
How astonishing then to see this amazing thin matter more 
like gauze, but of a strength that would bear the attack in which 
our thickest glass would fail! I cannot help adding a figure of 
one of the hairs to show the valves, fig. 3. 
Figure | and 2: the view of the single Anemone to show 
how those sprigs found scattered in every part of the interior of 
the plant are also to be discovered in the corolla; in some they 
may be seen through the light if examined with a double micro- 
scope: in others it is only by stripping off the upper cuticle. 
Fig. 9 is the cylinder to which the stamens are fastened, and 
which passes between the numerous pistils and corollas. I have 
taken it from thence to show that each ingredient, that is, the 
stamens, pistils, and corollas, have the same sort of cylinder in 
all flowers whateyer; but in the compound the cylinders pass, as 
in this, as low as aaa, where the mechanism JO is discovered 
in the plant, and where the different ingredients mount. 
I must mention a few words respecting the atmosphere. 1 
have shown that plants exercise by their leaves and roots a force 
of suction prodigiously great ; but if they perspired, it would be 
returning to the atmosphere all that they had thus gained, since 
they would hardly absorb more than Hales assures us they give 
out. Where then would be the advantage of the suction, since 
they are supposed immediately to refund what they have taken? 
The absorption, as I have detailed, is made either by the hairs 
(as in sand plants) or in the upper surface of the leaves (as in 
rock plants), and the fluids thus received pass through the stem 
of the leaf and form the bark juice. Mirbel says that the 
perspiration and absorption cannot come from the same organ : 
he had just before said that he was convinced absorption came 
from the leaves, then the leaves cannot perspire. 
. t 
