10 



MOISTURE ABSORBED IN 



sugar or gum within [the bladder] and potash or soda without, a 

 circulation will in like manner take place, the preponderance being 

 totvards the denser fluid, and in a degree proportionate to the 

 diff"erence in density. Instead of animal membranes, any vegetable 

 matter with fine pores, such as a thin piece of wood, or even a 

 porous mineral substance may be substituted with the same result." 



All this is in accordance with observations made by Mateucci, an 

 Italian physiologist, who gave very careful consideration and study 

 to the phenomena as produced by experiments with various 

 substances, transferred by endosmose and exosmose through various 

 media, embracing the analogues, or homologues of almost every action 

 of the kind observed in animal physiology ; and many, if not all 

 similar actions observed in vegetable physiology may be accounted for 

 as being thus produced. Thus, apparently, is the moisture absorbed 

 by uni-cellular plants like the Red Snow, and by the cells of which 

 such plants as the Yeast Plant, the Confervse, and the sea-weeds are 

 composed, and by the cells entering into the structure of such plants 

 as grass, and herbs, and bushes, and trees. 



With the knowledge thus attained, attention may be given to the 

 absorption of water as a concomitant of vegetation. 



" There is hope of a tree if it be cut down that it will sprout again 

 and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root 

 thei-eof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground ; 

 yet through the scent of water it will bud and bring forth boughs like 

 a plant." Thus wrote the author of the Book of Job more than three 

 thousand years ago — more than fifteen hundred years before the 

 coming of Christ ! On the other hand, drought is, I shall not say 

 destructive, but, interruptive to vegetation. 



We need not yet enquire into the function of the moisture in the 

 cell development, we have only to do at present with the two facts 

 adverted to, that the scent of water promotes and revives vegetation, 

 while drought interrupts it. 



In the case of the most of the lower forms of vegetation which have 

 been cited, the absorption is supposed to take place over all parts of 

 their surface, and in the case of all of these, excepting the Red Snow, 

 they are found growing surrounded with moisture ; and thus the 

 growth of the gigantic sea-weeds is continued by the absorption of 

 moisture by the myriads of cells of which exclusively their covering 

 is composed. 



But forests consist of trees and not of sea-weeds. And trees are 



