[ ,6 7 ] 



when I firft put a fprig of mint into a glafs-jar,. 

 ftanding inverted in a veffel of water j but when it 

 had continued growing there for fome months, I 

 found that the air would neither extinguish a candle 3 

 nor was it at all inconvenient to a moufe, which I 

 put into it. 



The plant was not affected any otherwife than 

 was the necefTary confequence of its confined fitua- 

 tion; for plants growing in feveral other kinds of air,, 

 were all affe&ed in the very fame manner. Every 

 fucceffion of leaves was more diminiihed in fize than 

 the preceding, till, at length, they came to be no 

 bigger than the heads of pins. The root decayed,. 

 and the ftalk alfo, beginning from the root j and yet 

 the plant continued to grow upwards, drawing its 

 nouriihment through a black and rotten item.. In 

 the third or fourth fet of leaves, long hairy filaments 

 grew from the infertion of each leaf, and fometimes 

 from the body of the ftem, mooting out as far as 

 the veflel in which it grew would permit, which, in 

 my experiments, was about two inches. In this 

 manner a fprig of mint lived, the old ftem decaying 2 

 and new ones mooting up in its place, but lefs and 

 lefs continually, all the fummer feafon. 



In repeating this experiment, care mufl be taken 

 to draw away all the dead leaves from about the 

 plant, left they mould putrefy, and affect the air. 

 I have found that a frefh cabbage leaf, put under a 

 glafs veffel filled with common air, for the fpace of 

 one night only,, has fo far affected the air,, that a 

 candle would not burn in it the next morning, and 

 yet the leaf had not acquired any fmell of putrefac- 

 tion. • i, 



Finding 



