VOL. XVII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS.' 525 



as a medicine for the murrain in cattle, and for all diseases in swine, giving these 

 a good handful or two in milk. 



Steel is not made from that they call steel ore, but iron, such as is made from 

 the rest.* 



Concerning the Seeds of Plants, with Observations on the Manner of the Pro- 

 pagation of Plants and Animals. By Mr. jinthony Van Lemvenhoech, 

 N° J99, p. 700. 



In the seed of an ash, represented of the natural size by fig. l, pi. 13. I 

 observed not only two large leaves, but that part also whence the root takes its 

 rise, was very large ; this part of the seed I always found uppermost when 

 growing on the tree, so that the seeds have a contrary situation on the tree, to 

 what they have in the earth. The two leaves of the seed or lobes were filled 

 up with an innumerable quantity of very small globules, except where the fibres 

 were visible ; which likewise were composed of much smaller globules, and took 

 their origin from that part whence the root proceeds. This supposed root I cut 

 through the middle, and have represented it fig. 2, where the outward ring 

 represents the bark, the next represents the woody part, full of dark-coloured 

 points, which are its fibres ; the innermost oval represents the pith, composed 

 of round bodies. I have found that the size of the seeds of plants do not 

 answer to the size of the leaves, there being very small rudiments of the leaves 

 and plant in the large seeds of the oak and peach, represented by fig. 3, and on 

 the contrary, very considerable ones in the seeds of the ash. 



As I have formerly observed in the fleshy fibres of the muscles, that there 

 were no blood-vessels intermixed with them, but that they were placed only in 

 the membranes that encompassed the muscles, and showed how the fleshy 

 muscles might be nourished by these blood-vessels, so I find the leaves of plants 

 to be made up of globules, included in the membrane that makes the superficies 

 of the leaf in all places, but where the fibres are conspicuous. The manner in 

 which I suppose these globules, and consequently the leaf, is nourished, is thus : 

 the liquor or sap is conveyed in the vessel BC, fig. 4, and communicated first 

 to the globule F, from that to G, thence to H, and so on ; as if you should 

 put several small pellets of dried clay in a glass vessel, if the water touch but 

 one of them, it will communicate by that to the second, third, and so on till 

 they are all wet. 



Now, if in the small seeds of the ash, of which 6 weigh not 4 grains, 



* Iron is converted into steel by combining it with carbon. The processes employed for this 

 purpose are described by Mr. Collier, in the 5th vol, of the Manchester Memoirs. 



