118 COMPARISON OF VEGETABLE 



strongly in the cases on which Professor Forbes 

 has grounded his novel views of the subject. 



Connected also with this part of Vegetable 

 Physiology is a paper of Dr. Martin Barry's, in 

 the Phil. Trans, for 1842, Pt. 1 ;* in which he 

 traces considerable analogy, not to say identity 

 of form, between animal and vegetable fibre, 

 and especially in one peculiar portion : the fol- 

 lowing extract will be found interesting. " It 

 is known that vegetable tissue presents, in some 

 parts, a feature which has heretofore seemed 

 wanting, or nearly so, in that of animals, the 

 spiral form. I venture to believe that some 

 appearances met with in my investigations, may 

 go far towards supplying this deficiency." Dr. 

 Barry has given plates of these appearances as 

 they are found " in the nervous tissue, in muscle 

 in minute blood-vessels, and in the crystalline 

 lens." 



82. The power of vitality, so wonderfully 

 conspicuous in the vegetable kingdom, which 

 enables a seed to retain its vegetating power 

 though dormant for many years, has a remark- 

 able analogy with the revivification of some of 

 the animalcules. " The Rotifer redivivus, or 



' " On Fibre." 



