422 Scientific Intelligence. i 
; 
that the body in excess goes into combination, and expels those before 
combined. We observe here a tendency to bring all the bases into what 
we may designate as an equilibrium of solution. This principle appears 
adapted more than any other yet discovered to generalize the phenomena 
of indirect action, and to enable us to foresee and explain them.”—Smith- 
sonian Report for 1859, p. 192. 
Further investigation will very likely demonstrate that the solvent 
There is another mode in which gypsum acts that in many cases is 
perhaps no less influential than the one just noticed. In the writer’s 4th 
Smithsonian Lecture (p. 191 of the Feport) may be found the following 
passages : 
“Gypsum, common salt, carbonate of lime, nitrates of potash and soda, 
and in fact all the saline compounds which are incorporated with the soil 
in manures, may exert important physiological effects on the plant in 
a 
9 
addition to their mere nutritive function. 
Se ey IE ead ee 
Ee Te ee 
