PLANT. 
garded as locomotive or migratory. The 
strawberry may be selected as a familiar 
example.” i ' 
Plants, like animals have a wonderful 
power, of maintiiining their common tem- 
perature whatever be the temperature of 
the atmosphere that surrounds them, and 
like animals they are found to exist, in 
astonishing degrees of heat and cold. Of 
these Mr. Good has given many curious 
instances. Animals are often divided into 
the three classes of terrestrial, aquatic and 
aerial. Plants are capable of a similar 
division. Among animals it is probable 
that the largest number is of the first class, 
but among vegetables it should seem, from 
the almost countless species of fuci, &c. 
that the largest number belongs to the sub- 
njarine class. Many animals are amphi- 
bious or capable of preserving life in either 
element ; the vegetable world is not with- 
out instances of a similar power. Animals 
of vaiious kinds are aerial : all the most 
succulent plants of hot climates are of this 
description: these will only grow in soils 
or sands from which no moisture can be 
extracted : they are even destroyed by a 
full supply of wet by a rainy season : hence 
it has been supposed that they derive the 
whole of their nourishment from the sur- 
rounding atmosphere, and that the only 
advantage which they acqirire from thrust- 
ing their roots into such strata is that of 
obtaining an erect position. Some qua- 
drupeds seem to derive nutriment in the 
same manner. The bradypus, or sloth, 
never drinks, and trembles at the feeling 
of rain. Among plants possessing the same 
properties is the aerial epidendrum, a native 
of the East Indies, where it is no uncom- 
mon tiling for the inhabitants to pluck it 
up on account of the elegance of its leaves, 
the beauty of its flower, and the exquisite 
odour it ditfuses, and to suspend it by a 
silken cord from the cieling of their rooms, 
where from year to year, it continues to 
put forth new leaves, new blossoms, a new 
fragrance, excited alone to new life and 
action by the stimulus of the surrounding 
atmosphere. “ That stimulus is oxygen ; 
ammonia is a good stimulus, but oxygen 
possesses far superior powers, and hence 
without some portion of oxygen no plant 
can ever be made to germinate : hence to 
the use of cow-dung and other animal recre- 
ments, which consists of muriatic acid and 
ammonia, while in fat oil and, other fluids 
that contain little or no oxygen, and consists 
altogether, or nearly so, of hydrogen and 
carbon, seeds may be confined for ages 
without exhibiting any germination what- 
ever. And hence, again, and the fact de- 
serves to be extensively known, however 
torpid a seed may be, and destitute of all ' 
power to vegetate in any other substance, 
if steeped in a diluted solution of oxygenat- 
ed muriatic acid, at a temperature of about 
46° |Or 48° of Fahrenheit, provided it still 
possess its principle of vitality, it will ger- 
minate in a few' hours.; and if, after this,^ 
it be planted, as.it ought to be, in its appro- 
priate soil, will grow with as much speed 
and vigour as if it had evinced no torpidity , 
whatever.” 
The author next proceeds to enquire into 
the mode by which vegetable matter is ca- 
pable of being converted into animal sub- 
stance, so as not only to be perfectly assi- 
milated to it, but to become the basis of 
animal nutriment and increase. “ Now to 
be able to reply succinctly and directly to 
this question, it is necessary first ^f all to 
inquire into the chief feature in which ani- 
mal and vegetable substances agree, and tlie 
chief feature in vvlsich they disagree. 
“ Animals and vegetables, then, agree in 
their equal necessity of extracting a certain 
sweet and saccharine fluid, as the basis of 
their support, from whatever substances 
may, for this purpose, be applied to their 
respective organs of digestion. Animal 
chyle and vegetable sap have a very close 
approximation to each other in tlieir con- 
stituent principles, as well as in their exter- 
nal appearance. In this respect plants and 
animals agree. They disagree, inasmuch as 
animal substances possess a very large pro- 
portion of azote, with a very small propor- 
tion of carbon ; while vegetable substances, 
on the contrary, possess a very large pro- 
portion of carbon, with a very small propor- 
tion of azote. And it is hence obvious, 
that vegetable matter can only be assimi- 
lated to animal by parting witli its excess 
of carbon, and filling up its deficiency of 
azote. 
“ Vegetable substances, then, part first of 
all with a considerable portion of their ex- 
cess of carbon, in tlie stomach and intesti- 
nal canal, during the process of digestion; 
a certain quantity of the carbon detaching 
a certain quantity of the oxygen existing in 
these organs, as an elementary part of the 
air or water they contain, in consequence of 
its closer affinity to oxygen, and producing 
carbonic acid gas ; a fact which has been 
clearly ascertained by a variety of experi- 
ments. by M. J urine, of Geneva. A very 
