204 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK ch. 



prevails. The bramble, for instance, has a stem more 

 or less pentagonal, and the leaves are in whorls of fives, 

 a character, as he incidentally observed, which throws 

 light on the number of petals and sepals. The petals 

 represent a whorl of leaves, and as a rule, when the 

 whorl consists of five leaves, the flower has five petals 

 and five sepals ; while when the leaves are opposite a 

 whorl would consist of four leaves, as, for instance, in 

 veronica, where also there are four petals. Thus, then, 

 the author finally remarked, plants have worked out 

 for themselves, millions of years ago, principles of con- 

 struction so as to secure the greatest strength with the 

 least expenditure of materials, which have been gradu- 

 ally applied to the construction of buildings by the 

 skill and science of our architects and engineers. 



At the end of the month they were back at 

 Kingsgate again, and he writes of seeing a large 

 school of porpoises passing close in by the cliff. 



In the middle of October Lord and Lady 

 Avebury, with Ursula and Irene, were staying 

 at Alnwick Castle for a few days, and he made 

 geological excursions in the neighbourhood, to 

 Bamborough, Warkworth, and various places of 

 interest. At the end of the month he went for 

 the day to Sunningdale to luncheon with his old 

 friends the Hookers. Sir Joseph Hooker was not 

 only an old friend but a very old man. " Found 

 him wonderfully well," he writes, " Much talk of 

 old times. He gave me a medallion of himself." 



Lord Avebury had been much dissatisfied 

 with the way in which the advocates of protec- 

 tion spoke of coal as a " raw " material, seeing 

 that so large a percentage of its cost to the 

 consumer consists in payment of the labour of 

 its extraction and conveyance, etc. With a view 

 of finding out approximately what proportion 

 of the cost would be thus created, he wrote 



