Vegetable Staticks. ny 
fuch a manner, chat if the ftem had dila- 
ted or contracted but the one hundredth 
part of an inch, it would have made the 
end of the inftrument (which was a piece 
of ftrong brafs-wire, 18 inches long) rife 
ot fall very fenfibly about one tenth of an 
inch ; but I could not perceive the inftru- 
ment to move, either by heat or cold, a 
bleeding or not bleeding feafon. Yet when- 
ever it rained the ftem dilated fo as to raife 
the end of the inftrument or lever of an 
inch, and when the ftem was dry it fubfid- 
ed as much. 
This Experiment fliews, that the fap (e- 
ven in the bleeding feafon) is confined in its 
proper vefiels, and that it does not confu- 
fedly pervade every interftice of the ftem, as 
the rain does, which entering at the per- 
fpiring pores, foaks into the interfaces, and 
thereby dilates the ftem. 
CHAP, 
