i6 7 



PAET n. 



VEGETABLE OKGANISMS. 



SECTION I. 



MICROSCOPIC STBUCTURE OP THE VEGETABLE WORLD. 



THE STUDY of the indefinitely small in the vegetable 

 and animal creation, is as interesting as the relation 

 between the powers of nature and the particles of 

 matter. 



The intimate organic structure of the vegetable world 

 consists of a great variety of different textures inde- 

 terminable by the naked eye, and for tkb most part re- 

 quiring a very high magnifying power to discriminate. 

 But ultimate analysis has shown that vegetables are 

 chemical combinations of a few very simple sub- 

 stances. Carbon and the three elementary gases 

 constitute the bases of all. No part contains fewer 

 than three of these universal elements, hence the 

 great uniformity observed in the chemical structure 

 of vegetables. The elements unite according to the 

 same laws within the living plant as in the inorganic 

 creation, and the chemical laws acting upon them 

 are the same. For, as already mentioned, M. Berthelot 

 having combined carbon and hydrogen into acetylene, 

 which no plant is capable of doing, he assumed it as 

 a base from which he deduced, by the common laws 



