24 STRONG DRINK AND TOBACCO SMOKE. 



scope it is seen as an extremely delicate transparent 

 layer overlying and penetrating the cells of the outer 

 skin, and is in many places rent and torn by the 

 distension of this tissue (Plate 4, figs. 26, 27). Silica is 

 one of those substances which the chemist finds some 

 diificulty in obtaining in a perfectly pure state, yet we see 

 our humble barley plant, in some most mysterious way, 

 assimilating it in truly wonderful proportion. 



I come now to the most interesting part of my subject. 

 There are few people w^ho do not take some interest in 

 flowers. Those who do will not have failed, during a 

 summer walk through a field of standing corn, to have 

 seen and to have admired the wild poppy growing up 

 amongst the forest of straw, and if they have plucked 

 them, will recall to their minds those exquisite lines of 

 Robert Burns, from his poem of " Tam O'Shanter:" — 



" But pleasures are like poppies spread, 

 You seize the flower, the bloom is fled ; 

 Or, like snow-flakes on a river, 

 A moment Avhite, then lost for ever ! " 



All can appreciate the aptness of Burns' simile of 

 fleeting pleasure, and the evanescent beauty of one of 

 our loveliest wild plants ; too often, the farmer would 

 say, the close companion of growing barley. But from 

 the eyes of Burns, as from our own, lay hidden many 

 beautiful objects teeming with wealth for us. Though 

 showing no outward signs of attractiveness, there yet 

 lie carefully enfolded within the leaves of those green 



