^ 



i6 



ABSORBENT VESSELS. 



Sect. II. 7 



branch of a tree, torn from its trunk, and having one of its forks 

 with the leaves on it inverted in a veflel of water, vi'ill continue for 

 feveral days unwithered, nearly as v^ell as if the whole had been placed 

 upright in the water. A willow rod on the fame account will grow 

 almoft equally well, whether the apex or bafe of it be fet in the 

 ground ; and Dr. Bradley, I think, mentions a young goofeberry-trec 

 having been taken up, and replantpd with its branches in the earth, 

 and its roots in the air ; and that the branches put forth root-fibres, 

 and the roots put forth leaf-buds. There is likewife a curious expe- 

 riment by Dr. Hales, who attached the eaftern branch of a young 

 tree to its neighbour by inarching, and its weftern branch to another 

 of its neighbours in the fame manner ; and after they were united, 

 he cut the ftem of the middle tree from its root, and thus left it hano;- 



ing in the air by its two inarched arms, where it flourifhed with con 



fiderable vigour. 



This power of carrying their fluid contents in a retrograde direc- 

 tion is alfo poiTeiTed in fome degree by the abforbents of animals, 

 particularly in their difeafed flate, and even in the operation of an 

 emetic, as fliewn in Zoonomia, Vol. I, Sed. 29 ; and is vifible in the 



cefophagus or throat of cows, who convey their food firft down- 

 ■wards, and afterward upwards by a dire£l and retrograde motion of 

 the annular cartilages, which compofe the gullet, for the purpofe of 

 rumination. 



7. The ftruiflure of thefe large vegetable abforbent 



fly 



called air-vefTels, probably confifls of a fpiral line, and not of a vefl( 



pted with 



for firft 



lymphatics ; 



laft year's fprig of a rofe 



md differs in this conflrudlion from animal 

 breaking almoft any tender vegetable, as a 

 -tree, or the middle rib of a vine-leaf, and 



gradually extending fome of the fibres, which adhere the longefl 



th 



fpiral ftrudlure becomes yifibl 



the naked eye, and dif 



tnidly fo by the ufe of a common lens, as is delineated in Duhamers 



Fhilique des arbres, T. i. Tab. II. Fig. 17, 18, 19, and in Plate LI. 



and 



[, 



» 



