no Vegetable Staticks. 
Experiment XXXIX. 
In order to try if I could perceive the 
ftem ofthe Vine dilate and contrad with 
heat or cold, wet or dry, a bleeding or not 
bleeding feafon, fome time in February^ I 
fixt to the ftem of a Vine an inftrument in 
fuch a manner, that if the Stem had dilat- 
ed or contraded but the one hundredth 
part of an inch , it would have made the 
end of the inftrument, (which was a piece of 
flrong brafs-wire, eighteen inches long) rife 
or fall very fenfibly about one tenth of an 
. inch 5 but I could not perceive the inftru* 
meat to move, either by heat or cold, a 
bleeding or not bleeding feafon. Yet 
whenever it rained the ftem dilated fo as to 
raife the end of the inftrument or lever tV 
of an inch, and when the ftem was dry 
it fubfided as much. 
This Experiment (hews, that the fap (even 
in the bleeding feafon) is confined in itspro^ 
per vcflels, and that it does not confufedly 
pervade every interftice of the ftem, as the 
rain does, which entering at the perfpiring 
pores, foaks into the interftices, and thcrc^ 
by dilates the ftem* 
CHAP. 
