670 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO I672. 



into visible strings, as is the nature of bird-lime, of the bark of holly, or the 

 milk of cataputia minor Lobel. Further, the leaf stalks of our garden rhubarb 

 do sometimes shoot a transparent and very pure crystalline gum, though the 

 veins, that held this gummy juice, are by no ordinary means visible in them, 

 and yet by comparing the nature and properties of this gum, with that of the 

 gums of other vegetables, we cannot doubt but this gum-rhubarb is the juice of 

 these veins, as well as we are assured the gum of other vegetables to be of 

 theirs, by the same comparative anatomy. Lastly, we think that even mush- 

 rooms, that seemingly inferior and imperfect order of vegetables, are not 

 exempt and destitute of these veins, some of them yielding a milky juice, hot 

 and fiery, not unlike some of the spurge kind, or euphorbium. 



It might be expected that I should add something at least concerning the 

 original and productions of these veins, if not an exact description of them, the 

 course of the juices in them, and their more immediate and primary uses in the 

 matter of vegetation : But I must acquaint you, that although I find indeed 

 many other scattered particulars, concerning the position, order, number, capa- 

 city, distributions, differences, figure, &c. of these veins ; you will be pleased 

 to take in good part, if I reserve them till the opportunity of another summer's 

 review. 



To conclude with the primary use of these veins; which is, in my opinion, to 

 carry the succus nutritius of plants, because, where they are not, there is no 

 vegetation; as it is seen, if an engrafted branch or arni be bared and stripped of 

 the clay, &c. in June, all the course of vegetation will appear to have been made 

 only by the bark, and not by the wood, that is, in the place only where these 

 veins are. A secondary use is the rich furniture of our shops; for, from these 

 veins only it is that all our vegetable drugs are extracted, and an infinite more 

 might be had by a diligent inquiry, and some easy means, which I have not un- 

 successfully put in practice. 



An Account of the Speahhig Trumpet, as contrived and published hy 

 Sir Sam. Moreland* Knight and Baronet ; ivith its Uses both at 

 Sea and Land. London, An. I67I. iV** 79, p- 3056. 



The author of this instrument relates first the several trials made with it ; of 

 which the most considerable was, that the largest of those that have been as 



* Sir Samuel Moreland was master of mechanics to King Charles tlie 2d, and invented several 

 useful machines J as, the speaking trumpet, and the engine for extinguishing fires, &c. He pub- 

 lished a treatise on arithmetic in ifiZ^. Besides the above article. Sir Samuel had two other papers 

 inserted in the Philosophical Transactions, viz. in volumes 9 and 56, tlie former oq an undertaking 



