38 GERMINATION OF THE SEED. CHAP. I. 



nished ; which will also agree better with the actual 

 phenomena of germination. It must be confessed, 

 however, that this explanation is still liable to some 

 objection ; because it has been found that any given 

 weight of seeds dried after germination contain 

 more carbon than the same weight of seeds dried 

 before germination. But by the indefatigable in- 

 dustry and profound investigations of M. Saussure, 

 this objection has been obviated also. 



If a seed of any kind whatever, dried as much 

 as possible, is weighed and made to germinate by 

 the aid of water in a close vessel, and if after ger- 

 mination it is taken and dried again, it will be found 

 to have lost in weight even beyond the allowance 

 for carbon which it must have lost, and mucilage 

 which it may have lost, during the process. This is 

 the fact according to the repeated experiments of 

 Saussure.* To what cause is it to be attributed ? 

 Saussure attributes it to a diminishing of the water 

 formerly existing in the seed in a fixed state. 

 Disproved. A quantity of Peas which had been gathered for 

 some years, and placed for some weeks in a stove 

 heated to 2O of Reaumur, were found to weigh 

 200 grains. They were then made to germinate in 

 a large vessel placed over mercury, containing about 

 five times their weight of water with an atmosphere 

 of common air. When the process of germination was 

 completed, 45 cubic inches of carbonic acid gas were 

 found to have been formed in the receiver, which, ac- 

 * Sur. Ja Veg. chap. i. sect. iii. 



