348 HOW CROPS GROW. 
Those vegetable substances which ordinarily manifest 
the greatest absorbent power for water, are pectin, pectic 
and pectosic acids, vegetable mucilage, bassorin, and al- 
bumin. In the living plant the protoplasmic membrane 
exhibits great absorbent power. Of mineral matters, 
gelatinous silica (Exp. 58, p. 123) is remarkable on account 
of its attraction for water. 
Not only do different substances thus exhibit unlike ad- 
hesion to water, but the same substance deports itself va- 
riously towards different liquids. 
100 parts of dry ox-bladder were found by Liebig to 
absorb during 24 hours :— 
268 parts of pure Water. 
133 “ “ Saturated brine. 
38 “ Alcohol (84°|,.) 
17 “ = Bone-oil. 
A piece of dry leather will absorb either oil or water, 
and apparently with equal avidity. If, however, oiled 
* leather be immersed in water, the oil is gradually and 
perfectly displaced, as the farmer well knows from his ex- 
perience with greased boots. India-rubber, on the other 
hand, is impenetrable to water, while oil of turpentine is 
imbibed by it in large quantity, causing the caoutchouc 
to swell up to a pasty mass many times its original bulk. 
The absorbent power is influenced by the size of the 
pores. Other things being equal, the finer these are, the 
greater the force with which a liquid is imbibed. This is 
shown by what has been learned from the study of a 
kind of pores whose effect admits of accurate measure- 
ment. <A tube of glass, with a narrow, uniform caliber, is 
such a pore. In a tube of 1 millimeter, (about 7 of an 
inch) in‘diameter, water rises 30mm. In a tube of, mil- 
limeter, the liquid ascends 300 mm., (about 11 inches) ; 
and.in a tube of ;1, mm. a column of 3,000 mm. is sus- 
tained. . In porous bodies, like chalk, plaster stucco, closely 
packed ashes or starch, Jamin found that water was 
