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citement and spring of vegetation, appears to depend much on 
the partial absence of its influences under the forms of conden- 
sing vapour, and of solar light ; as these, by employing the elec- 
tric fluid in the processes of gftrwth and maturation, would di- 
rect large quantities of it from that which is all-essential in the 
first instance. Hence, our March commences with a total desti- 
tution of leaves in all the more foliagenous species of trees, while 
the annuals among herbs have disappeared. The only vegeta- 
tive remains of these respective kinds are contained in the buds 
protruding from the trees, and the seeds which lie concealed in 
the soil. Thus a large proportion of those rays, which, as the 
season advances, are employed in the two subsequent processes 
of vegetation, are reserved to impart electricity to the air, as the 
instrument of producing the first excitement in the yet closed 
germs. As a farther preparation, — during the winter, now- at 
its termination, the vapours exhaled into the atmosphere in the 
preceding summer are gradually condensed, and conveyed into 
the earth in the forms of rain, snow, and hail, by which means 
that extraordinary dryness, which distinguishes the early spring, 
and is remarked by agriculturists for its salutary effects, is in 
part produced; and in part, probably, by the rarifying influ- 
ence of the increasing rays, causing the lower strata of our cli- 
mate to ascend and give place to the denser and yet drier air 
rushing in from regions into which fewer vapours had been ex- 
haled, and from which they had been more completely remo- 
ved by a more condensing temperature. These w inds are, more- 
over, of use in removing all particles of moisture, together with 
other impurities from the exterior of plants, and from the surface 
of the soil ; so that nothing may be left to be acted upon by the 
electric influence, but the buds, seeds, and emerging shoots. 
When the winds have sufficiently performed their office of des- 
siccation, that of vegetative excitement and germination seems 
speedily to commence. The glancing rays of the early season 
of the year are evidently more favourable to their accumulation 
in the atmosphere than the more direct rays of the advancing 
season; and from this cause in conjunction with those above 
stated, a much larger proportion of them will be lodged in the 
air, or resting upon it, reaching to some distance upward, than 
at a later season. The electric matter accumulating in the 
higher strata, will propel it downward, and probably at once 
