REMARKABLE FACTS ABOUT PLANTS. 359 



the only, source of carbon in these instances; 

 and if in these, most probably in all other 

 plants. 



Some other facts may be mentioned, on the 

 authority of Dr. Schleiden, which in a striking 

 manner set the same great fact with regard 

 to other plants before us. He observes : " The 

 oil-palms (Cocos nucifera, and Elais guineensis) 

 grow in sea-sand. The culture of the latter 

 is largely carried on on the west coast of 

 Africa in moist damp sand, not enriched by 

 manure. Between the years 1821 1830, Eng- 

 land alone imported from the coast of Guinea 

 107,118,000 Ibs. of palm-oil, and therewith 

 about 76 million Ibs. of carbon (contained in 

 the chemical composition of this oil), drawn 

 from a soil which in itself contained no carbon. . . 

 According to Darwin, the richest maize harvests 

 are obtained, from the interior of Chili and 

 Peru, from the most sterile quicksands, which 

 are never enriched by manure, and where only 

 small streamlets from the Andes supply any 

 water. . . . The soil of the entire district of 

 Brandenburg consists entirely of sea and down- 

 sand. It is still in many places composed of a 

 loose and pure quicksand of 100 feet deep, and 

 so movable that it does not, as I have had 

 opportunity of witnessing in the neighbourhood 

 of Berlin, require any very high wind to 

 change entirely the configuration of the surface. 



