42 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
our stomachs. Touch these valves with the poles of an electric battery and they 
will close. Attach a galvanometer, cause them to close, and an electrical dis- 
turbance will be noticed. This was long held to be comparable to the electrical 
disturbance noted when a muscle contracts, but it has been proved that the same 
thing occurs if any leaf or stem be bent in the same way, and is owing to the 
rapid passage of fluids from one cell to another. The pitcher plants and other 
insect-catching plants, as the utricularia axid pinguicula, were described, explained 
by diagrams and shown on the screen. 
Whether these insects, etc., were really appropriated as, food was next consid- 
ered. Francis Darwin proved that the drosera fed with nitrogenous food sur- 
passed others not so fed. In the case of the pitcher the experiment had been 
tried of feeding flies with saccharine matter in which was a trace of lithium. The 
flies were then given to the plants, and by means of the spectroscope the lithium 
was subsequently found to have become a part of their tissues. 
POWER OF VITAL FORCE IN GERMINATING SEEDS. 
During the years 1873 and 1874, a variety of experiments were made at the 
Massachusetts Agricultural College, with a view to determine the amount of force 
exerted in the growth of plants. These experiments are very fully described in 
two lectures by Pres. Clark, which are given in the Reports upon the Agriculture 
of Massachusetts for those years. Doubtless the publication of these lectures 
gave an impulse to the practicing of experiments in other places. Recently, the 
botanical faculty at Wellesley College have been experimenting upon the germi- 
nation of seeds. 
We are indebted to our South Natick correspondent, Mr. A. P. Cheney, for 
the following condensed report of two of these experiments. 
Three pints of marrowfat peas were placed in a strong iron vessel, into which 
a cover was so fitted that while it would readily pass down inside, it would not 
allow any peas to pass up by it. Scales, capable of weighing something over 
half a ton, being prepared for the purpose, the vessel of peas was placed upon 
the platform, and warm water added. This was done at 7.45 a. m. 
At 8.00 A. the pressure from the swelling of the peas 
amounted to . 75 lbs. 
9.00 A. M. it had risen to 300 
9.50 " -432 
11.00 '' 585 
12.00 M. " 687 
1.05 P. M. " 778 
2.00 " 855 
3.10 " 943 
4.00 " 980 
4-45 " • ^°25 
