THE FLOEAL WOELD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 360 



nerves alone remained, and that he had been equally successful with 

 a leaf of the palm-tree. The process he confided to Bartholice alone, 

 under promise of secresy, and the invention excited no attention. 

 About seventy years after, the Dutch anatomist, Ruysch, was led 

 from the dissection of animals to that of plants, and for this purpose 

 tried a method which he had employed with success in the former 

 case — namely, by covering the leaves and fruit with insects, 

 which ate up the soft and pulpy parts, leaving those which were 

 hard. 



This method, however, was imperfect, never producing a com- 

 plete skeleton ; and he therefore endeavoured to execute the task 

 with his own fingers, after he had separated the soft parts from the 

 hard by decomposition. In this he succeeded so perfectly, that all 

 who saw his skeletons of leaves or fruit were astonished at the 

 fineness of the work, and wished to imitate them. At first Ruysch 

 endeavoured to keep his process a secret, and evaded giving direct 

 answers to the questions of the curious ; but after several other 

 persons had endeavoured by various means to produce the same 

 effect, but unsuccessfully, he, in 1723, published the whole method 

 of preparing his leaf skeletons ; and it has been conjectured that he 

 gained his information at first from an account of the experiments of 

 the Italian anatomist first mentioned. When the method of pro- 

 ducing these skeletons became publicly known, they ware soon pre- 

 pared by others, some of whom made observations contrary to those 

 of Ruysch. Among these, Du Hamel, in 1727, described and illus- 

 trated with elegant engravings the interior construction of a pear ; 

 and ten years afterwards Seligmance, an engraver, published figures 

 of several leaf skeletons, which he had taken, not by drawing, but 

 by impressions from the leaves themselves, taken with red ink. Selig- 

 mance died before he had completed more than thirty of his plates. 

 The process has of late years been brought to perfection; it is useful 

 to the botanist, and pleasing to the unscientific observer. Much may 

 be learned from it even by merely a cursory inspection ; but the 

 real study of botany has of late years become so general, that we 

 hope that a description of the method used to procure these elegant 

 preparations may induce some of our young readers to make a trial 

 of it. 



Choose the leaves of trees or plants which are somewhat sub- 

 stantial and tough, and have woody fibres, such as the leaves of 

 orange, laurel, apricot, apple, oak, etc. ; but avoid such leaves as 

 have none of the woody fibres which are to bo separated and pre- 

 served by this method ; such are the leaves of the vine, lime-tree, 

 and some others. These are to be put into au earthen or glass 

 vessel, and a large quantity of rain-water to be poured over them ; 

 after this, they are to be left to the open air and to the heat of the 

 sun, without covering the vessel. When tlio water evaporates so as 

 to leave tho leaves dry, more must be added in its place ; the leaves 

 will by this means putrefy, but they require a different time for 

 this; some will be finished in a month, others will require two 

 months, or longer, according to the toughness of their pa- 

 renchyma. 



24 



December. 



