THE 



GARDENER'S MAGAZINE, 



JANUARY, 1842. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



Art. I. On the Chemical Statics of Organised Beings. 

 By M. Dumas. 



[The following discourse formed the concluding lecture of 

 Professor Dumas in the E'cole de Medecine in Paris. It was 

 translated and published in the Philosophical Magazine for No- 

 vember and December, 1841 ; and, conceiving it to be the most 

 masterly production of the kind which we had ever seen, we 

 applied to Mr. Taylor, and the other editors of the Philoso- 

 phical Magazine, for permission to transfer it from the pages of 

 that work to those of the Gardener's Magazine. This permission 

 has been very kindly granted, and for it such of our readers as 

 are of a philosophical turn will, we are sure, feel as much 

 obliged as we are ourselves. We have in the present Number 

 only given a portion of the article, and it happens to be that 

 which is the least interesting to gardeners; but the remainder, 

 which is entirely occupied with vegetable chemistry, will be 

 given in our next Number, and, in the meantime, those who 

 are too anxious to wait can procure a copy of the Philosophical 

 Magazine for December last.] 



Life, whose painful mysteries you are called upon to fathom, 

 exhibits among its phenomena some which are manifestly con- 

 nected with the forces that inanimate nature herself brings into 

 action, others which emanate from a more elevated source, less 

 within the reach of our boldest stretch of thought. 



It has not been my province to accompany you in looking 

 with an inquisitive eye into all that part of your studies under 

 which those facts which appertain to the normal or irregular 

 exercise of the instincts of life arrange themselves. Still less 

 have we ever had to bring under our consideration those noble 

 faculties, by means of which the human intellect, mastering all 

 that surrounds it, breaking down all obstacles, bending all the 

 powers of nature to its wants, has step by step made conquest 

 of the earth, of the seas, of the whole globe; a vast domain, 



3d Ser. — 1842. I. b 



