Beck on Salt Storms, ire. 393 



which do not possess it. Besides, is it not rational to con- 

 clude, from the large quantities of soda which are always 

 found in sea plants, that this saline atmosphere is rather pro- 

 pitious than otherwise to their growth, and that it only proves 

 injurious to plants accustomed to the unadulterated air of the 

 land. 



Again, I do not think that it can be explained by supposing, 

 that the salt is absorbed into the plant, and thus acts as a poi- 

 sonous substance. We Jcnow, that in land plants which are 

 cultivated in the neighbourhood of the sea, salt is absorbed 

 through their roots.* It must of course circulate with the 

 juices through the whole plant ; and yet in these cases the 

 leaves are not destroyed by it. 



The most plausible method of explaining it appears to be 

 this : that the salt, by its irritating or corrosive power, destroys 

 the small vessels in the leaf which are necessary for the cir- 

 culation going on in it during health. 



Dr. Darwin has ingeniously shown the analogy between the 

 functions of the leaves of plants, and the lungs of animals. If 

 this be admitted, it will not be difficult to account for the 

 action of salt upon leaves. This substance, when taken into 

 the stomach, proves not merely innocuous, but wholesome ; 

 but when accidentally introduced into the lungs, irritation, 

 inflammation, and death are the consequences. So with 

 plants — when admitted into them in combination with their 

 juices, it may be harmless ; but when applied to the lungs or 

 leaves, death ensues. 



* To prove that salt is absorbed into land plants growing near the sea, the 

 following facts, for which I am indebted to ray friend, Dr. D. V. Knevels, are 

 conclusive. The fruit of those cocoa-nut trees which grow near the seashore in the 

 West-Indies is generally found to have a saltish taste ; and even the milk in the 

 nut is perceptibly impregnated with it. Those trees on the contrary which grow ia 

 the interior, beyond the influence of salt water, have their fruit perfectly fresh and 

 sweet. 



The same gentleman informs me, that in a plantation of his father's, in the 

 West-Indies, situated on the seashore, a whole crop of the cane was rendered 

 unfit for the purpose of making sugar, in coosequeace of the great quantity odalt 

 which it had imbibed. 



