VOL. LXXII.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 3]Q 



XXVI I. Some further Considerations on the Influence of the Vegetable Kingdom 

 on the Animal Creation. By John Ingenhousz, F. R. S., &c. p. 426. 



On being informed, Dr. I. says, a few months ago, as well by private letters 

 as from the Critical Review, that his doctrine was quite overturned by the 5th 

 volume of Dr. Priestley, and by an experiment quoted in Mr. Cavallo's book on 

 Air; he invited some friends to assist in some decisive experiments, here related. 

 He told them the whole result which was to be expected from them, if his system 

 was founded on nature, explaining to them before-hand the theory of these re- 

 sults, and promising, at the same time, that, if the result should fail, he should 

 himself be the first to discredit his own system. Dr. I. had, he says, the satis- 

 faction to convince them that the result did fully answer his prediction and expec- 

 tation. These experiments are the following, all made in a hot-house of the 

 Botanical Garden in the winter of 178'2. 



Dr. I. exposed to the sun-shine 6 globular glass vessels, each containing about 

 l6o cubic inches of space, all filled with pump-water, which was boiled during 

 more than 2 hours, and poured quite hot into the glass vessels, on purpose to 

 prevent any access of air to the water. 



Exper. 1. — In 2 of these vessels he put as much of the conferva rivularis (a 

 water plant, classed by Linnaeus among the cryptogamia) as was sufficient to take 

 up the space of about an inch square. — Exper. 2. In the next 2 vessels he sus- 

 pended, by threads tied to bits of cork, some pieces of woollen and silk cloth of 

 different colours, as white, scarlet, green, and brown, having previously wetted 

 them in some boiled water, on purpose to free them from all air. — Exper. 3. In 

 the 2 remaining vessels he placed nothing at all. — Exper. 4. In another vessel of 

 the same form and size he put some of the conferva rivularis, and filled it with 

 pump-water. All these globular vessels were inverted, with their orifices im- 

 mersed in vessels filled with quicksilver, for the purpose of preventing effectually 

 any communication between the contents of the vessels and the atmosphere. 



Result of Exper. 1. — The first 2 days neither of the vessels contained any 

 air, and even the small quantity of air, which here and there adhered in the 

 form of a bubble to the fibres of the vegetable when it was shut up in the vessel, 

 had entirely disappeared. The 3d day, in the morning, some air bubbles began 

 to rise from every part of the conferva in both glasses; and in the afternoon of 

 the same day, a great quantity of air bubbles rose continually from it. Dr. I. 

 took at that time the vegetable out of one of these vessels, and plunged a wax 

 taper, just extinguished, into the orifice of this vessel, to see if the air, already 

 extricated from the conferva, was dephlogisticated. The wax taper took flame 

 immediately with an uncommon splendour. After this he poured half of the 

 water from the globular vessel into a common bottle, and corked it. He in- 

 verted this bottle afterwards in an earthen vessel filled with boiled water; and 



