196 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



giving the statistics of commerce in that old city. Some of the 

 facts adduced by the Secretary were very interesting, but too 

 lengthy for our colums. 



MINERALS AND VEGETABLES. 



The Secretary read the following paper upon the food of plants, 

 and their mineral constituents : 



"Plants use every mineral to some extent. Iron, the most 

 useful to us all, is most largely used. All the metals are used 

 cobalt, tin, lead, silver, copper, gold. All the earths and crystals — 

 every poison — are taken up by them, and thus supplied to the 

 animals who eat them. Chemistry has no means of measuring 

 the homeopathic doses in them for the most part ; but gold has 

 been found in the violet in the form of purple of Cassius. G'old 

 and silver can be found in the durable petals of some of the 

 chrysanthemums, and on the skins of many fruits, if not in the 

 flesh. Water is the grand solvent — bearing in it all the compo- 

 nents of our earth, aided by every acid in millionth or billionth 

 proportions, and so feeds our plants. Iron seems to be more 

 abundantly used by plants than all others, and is for man the 

 most wholesome. 



MINERAL INSECTS. 



Insects are gloriously dressed in all the splendors of the metals. 

 Solomon had studied them and wrote a book on them, which is 

 lost. He said that Kings, in all their glory, were not so well 

 dressed ! Gold, silver, cobalt, cinnabar, iron, copper, and all 

 others, for their coats of mail! Diamond forms their eyes! 

 They see farther than the animals, and many objects at once. 

 Some see through 1,000 diamonds at once, so as to command a 

 view of every enemy or of every flower and fruit. Their flight 

 exceeds our knowledge. A house fly often makes sixty miles an 

 hour, and can sustain it for a long time. The libellula, at^a 

 speed of forty miles an hour, can stop and turn in less than six 

 inches. The bee sees several miles ofi" his objects — his velocity 

 cannot be less than forty miles an hour, and no mathematician 

 can make a right line on paper equal to his right line in the 

 air called a bee-line. Man never attained his dress, his eye-sight, 

 nor his movements. These insects, if made as large as men, 

 would in one hour be masters of the world. 



