in vegetable Structures. 295 



necessary to enquire what is the source of the acid and alkali 

 developed in these experiments ; for it is obvious that the 

 water, in which the plates of metal were immersed, having 

 been freed from saline ingredients by distillation, cannot be 

 regarded as yielding either of them ; we must therefore look 

 to the starch, which substance always contains (not as an 

 impurity, but as a necessary constituent) saline matters. This 

 will scarcely be objected to, since the elaborate researches of 

 Raspail, who certainly appears to have demonstrated the fact 

 that, for an organic molecule to assume organisation, it is 

 necessary that it should combine with a saline base, at least 

 when that molecule, as in the case of starch, consists of car- 

 bon with oxygen and hydrogen in the proportion to form 

 water. " Une molecule de carbone et une molecule d'eau 

 s'associent pour former la molecule organique sous forme 

 spherique ; la molecule organique, en se combinant avec une 

 base, forme les parois des tissus ligneux si la base est fixe, et 

 glutineux ou albumineux si la base est ammoniacale."* This 

 beino- granted, and knowing that chloride of sodium, or com- 

 mon salt, is most generally present in organic matter, we 

 cannot but refer the acid and alkali developed by the weak 

 electric currents in the above experiments to a decomposition 

 of that salt, hydrochloric acid appearing at the zinc, and soda 

 at the copper, surface of the compound discs. If the starch 

 remaining on the discs after the experiment be examined 

 under a microscope, we shall find multitudes of ruptured 

 vesicles of amylaceous matter lying strewed through the mass, 

 their contents having been set free, and partially decomposed, 

 by the weak electric currents, to the action of which they had 

 been subjected. 



Guided by these experiments, we shall have no difficulty 

 in appreciating the results obtained by allowing seeds to 

 germinate whilst under the influence of electric currents. It 

 is obvious that, if the seed, during germination, acts in a man- 

 ner analogous to the negative plate of a voltaic apparatus, in 

 expelling acids and attracting bases, we ought (allowing this 

 function of the seed to be necessary to the perfection of ger- 

 mination) to expect that, by causing the seed to assume an 

 oppositely electric state, the process of germination would be 

 retarded, or, perhaps, altogether checked ; and this was found, 

 by the results of numerous experiments, to be the case. 



M. Becquerel covered the surfaces of the compound disc 

 (used in the experiments with the starch) with moistened 

 cotton, on which he allowed seeds to germinate, after placing 



* Raspail, Nouv. Syst. de Chimie Organique, 1833, p. 545. See, also, 

 Nouv. Systeme de Physiologie Vegetale, par Raspail, 1837, passim. 



