VII. SCIENCE IN HER CELLS. 131 



atony," ( ; atonic,' want of tone.) " above all, in its cen- 

 tral parts." And so ends all he has to say for the pres- 

 ent about the marrow! and it never appears to occur to 

 him for a moment, that if indeed the noblest trees live 

 all their lives in a state of healthy and robust paralysis, 

 it is a distinction, hitherto unheard of, between vegeta- 

 bles and animals ! 



12. Two pages farther on, however, (p. 45.) we get 

 more about the marrow, and of great interest, to this 

 effect, for I must abstract and complete here, instead of 

 translating. 



" The marrow itself is surrounded, as the centre of an 

 electric cable is, by its guarding threads that is to say, 

 by a number of cords or threads coming between it and 

 the wood, and differing from all others in the tree. 



"The entire protecting cylinder composed of them has 

 been called the "etui,' (or needle-case.) of the marrow. 

 But each of the cords which together form this etui, is 

 itself composed of an almost iniinitely delicate thread 

 twisted into a screw, like the common spring of a letter- 

 weigher or a Jack-in-the-box, but of exquisite fineness." 

 Upon this, two pages and an elaborate figure are given 

 to these 'trachees' tracheas, the French call them, 

 and we are never told the measure of them, either in di- 

 ameter or length,* and still less, the use of them ! 



* Moreover, the confusion between vertical and horizontal sections 

 in pp. 46, 47, is completed by the misprint of vertical for horizontal 

 in the third line of p. 43, and of horizontal for vertical in the fifth 



