AUGUST. 393 



conifers, are rendered hardy by the resin they contain ; the Norfolk Island 

 pine and the Malay dammer are tender, although both are resinous. 



It must be also remembered that plants are killed by cold although their 

 cells are perfectly empty, in which case we need not say that the expansive 

 force of frozen fluid would have nothing to operate upon. 



All tlie experience that 40 years' acquaintance with such phenomena has 

 given us, leads to one, and only one, conclusion, which is that the power 

 of resisting frost is the consequence of specific vitality and of nothing else. 



That a low temperature, or frost, acts differently upon different plants 

 very nearly allied to each other is notorious ; and this even Avhere they are 

 mere varieties of each other. The China rose, for instance, resists any 

 amount of English cold ; the variety called the tea-scented, perishes or suf- 

 fers severely, in every ordinary winter. The gay-flowered senecios of the 

 Canaries, known in gardens under the name of cinerarias, shrink from the 

 mere approach of frost, and perish upon its first arrival ; yet the ragworts, 

 and mugworts, and groundsels, all equally senecios, can bear a Russian 

 winter. In like manner oaks, chestnuts, conifers, exhibit similar differences 

 in their power of resisting frost. 



It is impossible, upon any other principle, to account for the facts that 

 surround us. For example. Genista setnensis has survived all the cold of 

 this winter. What is there in its constitution, except specific vitality, 

 which can account for the fact ? — which can explain why it has endured, 

 without suffering, a degree of cold that has proved fatal to its first cousin 

 the common furze ? Unhesitatingly we answer — nothing. 



It may be asked, what is this " specific vitality ?" To that we have no 

 reply to give, except that we do not know. 



It is an axiom in animal physiology, that " the general effect of cold on 

 living bodies is a diminution of vital activity, which terminates, if the cold 

 be intense, and its application continued, in death." (Pereira.) Hence it is 

 to be inferred, that all living things whatsoever must finally perish beneath 

 the influence of cold, provided it is severe enough and prolonged enough. 

 But living things have each their separate constitutional vitality, the power 

 of which in resisting cold differs between species and species, or variety 

 and variety, and even between individual and individual. It is a peculiarity 

 derived from the great source of all things ; a reality ; inexplicable but in- 

 disputable; like light, and heat, and electricity. We see it manifested 

 among plants between the yellow and the spider ophrys, and the tea rose 

 and the China rose ; as among animals between the ass and the zebra, the 

 Negro and the Esquimaux, the terrier and the Italian greyhound. 



And we make this avowal of ignorance in the full conviction that it is 

 the only way of meeting such inquiries. Men may speculate about first 

 causes, and attempt to explain the inexplicable, but they only waste their 

 own time and fatigue the patience of their readers. 



It is by attempting to explain every phenomenon of life by the known 

 laws of chemistry, electricity, and similar agencies, that we plunge into a 

 labyrinth of perplexity — 



" And find no end, in wandering mazes lost." 



VOL. XXI. NO. VIII. 50 



