PHYSIOLOODY. 229 
-wegetables by chemical analysis, then we certainly 
meet with most of them in the animal kingdom too. 
‘The chief vegetable principles are, 
1. Caloric, is present in all parts of vegetables, 
and constitutes their temperature when free. 
2. Light, is found in the oils and other inflam- 
mable vegetable substances. 
3. The electric fluid shows itself by various elec- 
trical phenomena observed in plants. 
4, Carbon, is the chief constituent part of all ve- 
getables. 
5. Hydrogen. ‘This may easily be obtained in a 
gazeous form, combined with caloric, from all legu- 
minose plants. . 
6. Oxygen is, we shall soon find, evolved by the 
rays of the sun. Part of it, however, is combined 
with acidifiable bases and forms vegetable acids. 
7. Azote, is exhaled by plants in the night; the 
sreatest part of it however is in a combimed state. 
Whether azot belongs to the simple substances, 
(elements), or as Goettling supposes, is a 
compound of oxygen and light, we miust 
leave to the future decision of chemists. At 
present we shall consider it as a simple sub- 
stance. | 
8. Phosphorus occurs in plants of the 15th class, 
and in the gramina. Its existence manifestly ap- 
pears by the shining of old rotten wood, the root 
of the common Tormentilla recta, and of rotte po- 
tatoes, Solanum tuberosum, Sc. 
9. Sulphur, in form of acid combined with oxy- 
gen, 1s met with in many plants, either with potass, 
Ps forming 
