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On Electricity in Plants^ and on Vegeto-terrestrial Currents. 83 



Art. XIII. — On the causes of the dise^igagement of Elec- 

 tricity in Plants^ and upon Vegeto-terrestrial Currents ; by 



M. BECq,UEREL.* 



i 



Since the discoveries of Galvani and Volta, the researches on 

 the development of electricity have taken a philosophical direc- 

 tion. It has been the object to discover not only the causes of its 

 disengagement, bat also the relations existing between electricity, 

 molecular attraction and chemical affinity. The study of electro- 

 physiological phenomena has also been pursued ; and although to 



of 



Mar 



that general physics and physiology may ahke profit by researches 

 upon the presence of electricity in the operations of organic life 

 and in the constitution of organized bodies. 



The causes of the development of electricity in organized 

 bodies, living or but a short time deprived of life, are physical, 

 chemical and perhaps organic ; and in the last case, they pertain 

 to certain vital functions not yet clearly defined. 



My object in this memoir is to exhibit the proper mode of in- 

 vestigating the physical and chemical laws operating in the pro- 

 duction of electro-physiological phenomena, and also to give the 

 results at which I have arrived in my researches on plants, whose 

 snnplicity of structure renders experiment more easy than with 

 animals. 



^ Some preliminary explanations are necessary to render the sub- 

 ject intelligible. 



Organized bodies of the animal kingdom consist of osseous, 

 tendinous, membranous, fleshy, &c. parts filled or moistened with 

 liquids which render them more or less perfect conductors of 

 electricity ; and those of the vegetable kingdom, of woody fibre, 

 vessels, <fcc., in which liquids are present with the same result. 

 As the solids alone have no conducting power, the liquids act 

 the principal part in the production of the electric effects ob- 

 served, although vital action may intervene in some cases. These 

 liquids, when two are in contact, necessarily produce through the 

 resultant reactions sensible electric effects ; observable not only 

 ^'Vith the condenser, by putting one of these liquids in relation 

 ^ith the earth and the other with one of the plates, but also 

 With the multiplier by closing the circuit with two plates of pla- 

 tinum plunged in these liquids. 



.A here may also be chemical reactions and currents without 

 using the plates of platinum, when the solids and liquids are ar- 

 ranged as will be soon fivnlained. 



• Ann. de Claim, et de Phys., xsxi, 40, J 851 



