26‘6 
MOTIONS IN PLANTS. 
State of alco- 
hol in feimcnt- 
eil liquors. 
Introduction 
to the letter. 
time, sent to me as " remarkable strong and old port.” I have '' 
lately examined a number of specimens of the better kinds of 
port wine in common use, and the results of these experiments 
lead me to place the average strength at 22 per cent, of alcohol 
by measure. 
A port wine procured for me by Dr. Baillie, and to which no 
brandy had been added, afforded 21,40 per cent, of alcohol : 
another specimen of a similar description, put into ray hand* 
by an Oporto metchant, contained only I 9 per cent, j it is th« ' 
weakest port wine I have met with. ^ 
The other results given in the table, agree perfectly with ' 
those of subsequent and more extended experiments. 
IV. 
Letter from Mrs. Agnes Ibbetson, shewing that the Spiral i:. 
H'^ire is the causes of all Motions in Plants. 
To Mr. Nicholson. 
SIR, 
S OME late discoveries which I have been so fortunate as to i 
make by means of the compound microscope, have so 
completely substantiated the evidence before adduced, to prove 1 
that the spiral wire is the cause of all motion in plants, that I 
shall Jiow venture to collect all the facts into one general view, 
and thus give a complete idea of the mechanical force in plants, 
their various kinds of motion, (little known) and the mecha- 
ni.sm by which they are directed ; the consequences of that 
motion, and the cause of its duration and cessation ; and this 
description being accompanied by drawings exactly copied from ' . 
plants dissected for the purpose, so as to lay bare the muscles, 
and shew the direction of their levers and pulleys, (for such 
they may properly be called) will render the whole, I flatter 
my.self, so plain and evideiit, as to banish doubt from the mind, 
■nd prove the truth of two general botanical propositions 1 have 
long 
