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These results are in many respects so remarkably at variance 

 with all that we are as yet acquainted with respecting similar 

 subjects, that we must at the outset doubt their correctness. 

 The small quantity of carbon of these substances, which ac- 

 cording to his statements would even be less than that in starch 

 and in gum, is in itself highly improbable, even if no similar 

 analyses had yet been made. According to these statements, 

 the cellular tissue is said to contain an overplus of oxygen and 

 the spiral vessels an overplus of hydrogen, which, however, is 

 not confirmed by analyses in German laboratories. Mr. Rigg is 

 also said to have long ago discovered that the perigonium of the 

 hyacinth contains oxygen in abundance, while the pistil and 

 pollen show a surplus of hydrogen, so that Mr. Reade thence 

 arrives at the conclusion that fibre (probably spiral fibre is here 

 intended !) contains hydrogen, and cellular membrane oxygen 

 in abundance, and indeed in such proportions that these gases 

 form water when the organs are analysed together. 



With respect to the analyses of the spiral vessels and cellu- 

 lar tissue from the root of the hyacinth, I must observe that 

 it is a most difficult, and in the hyacinth even an impossible 

 undertaking, to prepare the spiral vessels in so great a quan- 

 tity, i. e. entirely freed from every kind of cellular tissue, as is 

 necessary for any elementary analysis : besides, the spiral ves- 

 sels snap very easily in the hyacinth, and at the utmost we 

 could only succeed in preparing some pure fibre. Moreover 

 we are not informed in what manner Mr. Reade convinced 

 himself of the purity of the substances employed. Each in- 

 dividual cell of the cellular tissue must be separated piecemeal, 

 and then cleansed several times with alkalis, acids, alcohol, 

 aether, and water, if we desire to obtain a result on the compo- 

 sition of membrane. Thus also the considerable amount of 

 nitrogen, which these analyses indicate, is probably only to 

 be ascribed to the nitrogenous substances contained in the 

 cells ; for the numerous careful analyses of cellular tissue, of 

 wood, &c., hitherto performed, give no nitrogen at all, or at 

 least only so much that it may justly be regarded as a foreign 

 constituent. Mr. Rigg has even made various analyses of the 

 different parts of the flower of the hyacinth ; he thus first sepa- 

 rated the epidermis, then the cellular tissue situated immediately 

 beneath the epidermis, the spiral vessels, and the longer cells 



