221 



the phenomenon, as young plants of barley and wheat ; consequently 

 I conceive that there must be some special contrivance of nature in 

 these leaves, perhaps in all leaves, to guard against the accumulation 

 of watery fluid. 



The opportunity of witnessing these experiments can in no way be 

 so successfully obtained, or their results so satisfactorily examined, as 

 in Mr. Ward's cases ; which gives us another instance of the useful 

 adaptation of this plan to the pursuit of experimental inquiries re- 

 specting the functional operations performed during the growth of 

 plants. 



Edwin J. Quekett.. 



50, Wellclose Square, 



May 16th, 1842. 



Art. LXVII. — Analytical Notice of a treatise 'On the Growth of 

 Plants in Closely Glazed Cases.'' By N, B. Ward, F.L.S. 

 London : John Van Voorst. 1842. 8vo. 



The lovers of Nature and of Nature's works are deeply indebted to 

 the author of this treatise, for showing them by what means plants 

 may be made to grow and thrive in situations where kw could even 

 exist before. For although the fact that plants will live and grow 

 without direct communication with the external atmosphere, may have 

 been often observed long before the fern and gi-ass sprang up in Mr. 

 Ward's closed glass cylinder, yet to that gentleman is undoubtedly 

 due the sole merit of so closely reasoning upon a simple circumstance 

 luiexpectedly brought under his notice, as to have deduced from it 

 principles which have already led to important results, while it is not 

 improbable that consequences still more important yet remain to be 

 disclosed. 



By means of this mode of cultivating plants, the botanist may cre- 

 ate for himself, even within the " brick-wall bounds " of any of our 

 large towns, such a scene of natural beauty as will in some measure 

 compensate for his exclusion from the pleasure of studying his favor- 

 ites in their own native haunts. In many respects indeed he will be 

 a gainer, in the facilities for study afforded by the naturalization of 

 the denizens of the wild wood or the snow-capped mountain under 

 his own roof, nay, even by his own fire-side : for rarely is a botanist 

 placed in such favorable circumstances as to be able to do more than 

 collect specimens of plants, as they are met with in his too often hur- 



