310 
THE LADIES MAGAZINE OF GARDENING. 
in the month of June 1833, Mr. Ward filled two cases with ferns, mosses, 
and grasses, and sent them out to Sidney, where they arrived in January 
1834. They were there taken out in good condition, and the cases refilled 
with plants of that country in the following month, the thermometer at 
the time ranging between ninety and one hundred degrees Fahr. In the 
passage to England, the temperature varied greatly, falling to twenty 
degrees in rounding Cape Horn, and rising to one hundred and twenty 
degrees in crossing the line. On arriving in the British Channel in 
November, the teniperature was again down to forty degrees. During 
the whole voyage of eight months, the plants in these cases received no 
protection either by day or by night; neither were they once watered 
through the whole period, and yet were taken out at London in the most 
healthy and vigorous condition. Other cases, filled with plants of a 
higher order, have been sent to Alexandria, and thence forwarded to Cairo, 
where, after a two months’ voyage, they have been taken out of the cases 
in a perfectly fresh and vigorous state. Exchanges of plants have been 
made by means of these cases, between the professor of botany in this 
university and botanists in the island of Cuba ; and the great establishment 
of the Messrs. Loddiges, at Hackney, is said to have sent out or received 
not fewer than two hundred cases filled with plants, and generally with 
complete success. 
In the opinion of Mr. Ward, it is owing to the “quiet state of the 
atmosphere surrounding the plants enclosed in these cases, that they are 
enabled to bear the extremes of heat and cold to which they are exposed 
in these long voyages.” In proof of the former position, he refers to the 
well-known experiments of Fordyce and Blagden, who were able to 
remain for a short time in a close room raised to the temperature of 212°, 
or even 260°, Fahr .; and in support of the latter, he appeals to the 
experience of Mr. King, who accompanied Captain Back in his late expe¬ 
dition to the arctic regions. That officer states that a difference of 78° or 
80°, either from cold to heat, or from heat to cold, did not suspend his 
usual avocations in the open atmosphere when the air was perfectly still ; 
but, though the temperature might be 40° higher, if it was accompanied 
with a stiff breeze, he did not stir from home. In like manner, Sir 
Edward Parry found that a degree of cold sufficient to freeze mercury 
could be more easily borne when the air was perfectly calm, than when, 
with a stiff breeze, the temperature was 50° higher. “ When the cold 
was 401° below freezing on the Fahr. scale,” says Mr. Laing, in his late 
Tour in Sweden, “ it was quite practicable to prosecute the great cod¬ 
fishing in open boats in the Lafoden Isles, within the arctic circle. The 
calmness of the air which accompanies this extreme cold is a kind of 
