bined : its union is so slight, as to be separated by simply 

 lowering the temperature. 



Nate 2. CARBON. - 



Carbon, or Charcoal, forms a considerable part of the 

 solid matter of all organised bodies; but it is most abun- 

 dant in the vegetable creation ; and chiefly obtained from 

 wood, when the oil and water (which are the other consti- 

 tuents of vegetable matter) are evaporated ; the black po- 

 rous brittle substance that then remains is called charcoal. 



Charcoal, or artificial carbon, is properly called an Oxyd 

 of Carbon. All carbon is not black many substances 

 consisting chiefly of carbon, are remarkably white ; cotton, 

 for instance, is almost wholly carbon. In the diamond 

 alone, carbon exists in its purest and most perfect state. 

 We are ignorant of the means which nature employs to 

 bring it to that state ; it may probably be the work of ages, 

 to purify, arrange, and unite the particles of carbon in the 

 form of a diamond. 



Oxygen, when in a state of combination with other sub- 

 stances, loses, in almost every instance, its respirable pro- 

 perties, and when combined with carbon, is not only unfit 

 for respiration, but extremely deleterious if taken into the 

 lungs. This accounts for the unwholesome fumes of 

 burning charcoal. By the combustion of charcoal, it 

 gradually combines witli the oxygen of the atmosphere, 

 for which it has a great attraction, and flies off in a gase- 

 ous state, called carbonic acid gas, or fixed air. 



This carbonic acid gas produces many unhappy acci- 

 dents at the opening of cellars, in places where wine, cider, 

 or beer are suffered to ferment. The famous Lake Aver- 

 nus, in Italy, by modern Italians called Lago di Triper- 

 gola, and which Virgil makes the entrance of hell, exhal- 

 ed so large a quantity of carbonic acid gas, that birds could 

 not fly over it with impunity. 



Carbon, in a state of gas, is also found at the celebrated 

 Grotto del Cani, near Naples. History informs us that 

 criminals who were made to descend into the grotto were 

 immediately stifled. 



Water can absorb this gas, as is seen in many of our 

 mineral waters, to which it gives a slight acid taste ; and, 

 although prejudicial to respiration, is is sometimes found 

 to be beneficial to the stomach. 



Note 3. UMBELLIFEROUS PLANTS. 



Umbelliferous plants (from the Latin umbdla, and fero 

 to bear,) are those plants producing the inflorescence call- 

 ed an umbel. A particular mode of flowering, which consists 

 of a number of flower-stalks or rays, nearly equal in length, 

 spreading from a common centre, their summits forming 

 a level, convex, or even globose surface, as in hemlock ; 

 more rarely a concave one, as the carrot. It is simple or 

 compound ; in the latter, each peduncle bears another lit- 

 tle umbel, umbellet, or umbellicle. 



Umbel, is sometimes called a rundle, from its roundness. 



A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF LINN^US. 



It may not be deemed out of place to give a brief sketch 

 of the life of the illustrious author of systematized botany, 

 which has been so nearly perfected by his indefatigable 

 labours. 



CHARLES LINN^US (afterwards Von Linns') was born at 

 Rashult, in Sweden, in 1707. He father, Nicholas Lin- 

 neeus, was minister of the parish of Stenbrohult, to which 

 the hamlet of Rashult belongs. His was a great admirer 

 of the vegetable productions of Nature, and adorned the 

 environs of his rural mansion with the native plants of 

 the neighbouring fields. Young Linnceus caught his 

 parent's enthusiasm, and early imbibed the same taste, 

 with such warmth, that he was never able to bend his 

 mind, with any great success, to other pursuits. He re- 

 lates of himself, that, when yet scarcely four years old, he 

 heard his father descant, to a rural party, on the distinc- 

 tive qualities of some particular plants, culled from the 

 flowery bank on which they were seated, and that this 

 first botanical lecture was ever after remembered as an 

 epoch in his scientific life. 



His father designed him for the church ; but he had no 

 particular relish for the profession, or its preparatory stu- 

 dies, being a very inapt scholar in the study of languages, 



either ancient or modern. In his diary, written in later 

 years, he confesses a peculiar inaptitude, and rather a 

 blameable indifference, for the learning of languages : de- 

 claring, that in all his travels, he learned " neither Eng- 

 lish, French, German, Laplandish, nor even Dutch, though 

 he stayed in Holland three whole years. Nevertheless, 

 he found his way every where well and happily." 



At the age of nineteen, his tutors, like the sapient in- 

 structors of Newton at Cambridge, gave him up as a 

 hopeless dunce ; advising that he should be apprenticed to 

 some mechanical trade. Fortunately for him, and for the 

 world, one of the lecturers on Natural Philosophy, Dr. 

 Rothmann, having observed his passion for the study of 

 Nature, and his practical observation, recommended to 

 his disappointed parent to turn his attention to the study 

 of medicine ; which advice was adopted, and he, after- 

 wards, became a practising physician of some eminence. 

 The amiable professor who had thus interested himself for 

 him, gave him private instruction in physiology. He first 

 suggested to Linnaeus the true principles upon which 

 botany ought to be studied founded on the parts of fruc- 

 tification, and put the system of Tournefort into his hands, 

 whose orders are distinguished by the fruit. Its very im- 



