loled, and the arillud , which it raises up, and becoming absorbed, the first 
growth is now commenced, 
To prove this use of the aperture , the Baron de Cleichen made the fol¬ 
lowing experiment. He covered the apertures of several beans with varnish. 
After it was perfectly hardened, he put these beans, and those which were 
not so treated, into water, in which carmine had been dissolved. 
The first remained four or five days without shewing the smallest change, 
nor was there any redness found under the aril his. 
But it was quite different with the others that were not varnished. 
They were full of the red liquid, and began to vegetate before the third 
day. 
Grew, who observed this aperture in all seeds which have hard skins 
above an hundred years ago, entertained the following curious opinion re¬ 
specting its ude , as well as that of the arillud . His words are, 
“ First of all, the bean being enfolded round with its three coatd, the sap 
wherewith it is fed must of necessity pass through these, by which means it 
is not only in a proportionate quantity, and by degrees, but also of a purer 
body, and possibly not without some vegetable infusion, which is trans¬ 
mitted to the bean. Whereas, were the bean naked, the sap must needs be 
not only overcopious, but crude and immature, as not being filtered through 
so fine a cotton as the coats must be.” 
“ And, as they have the use of a filter for the sap to pass through, so they 
have the property of a containing vessel, being alike accommodated to the 
securer fermentation thereof, as barrels are to any fermenting liquor.” 
“ And, as fermentation is promoted by some aperture in the vessel, so 
have we the foramen in the upper coat also contrived; that if these should 
be in need of some more airy particles to excite the fermentation, through this 
they might obtain their entry; or, on the contrary, should there be any such 
particles, or steams, as might damp the genuine proceeding thereof, through 
this again they may have easy issue; or, if by being overcopious, they should 
become too high a ferment, and prevent those slow and progressive degrees, 
as are necessary to a due vegetation. The said aperture being that, as a 
common passport here to the sap, with what we call the vent hole of the 
barrel is to the new tunned liquor.” 
The chief design of the arillud , however, appears to be, not the filtering 
of the water, for the water enters by the aperture; or, if the arillus be ex¬ 
tremely thin, pervades it; but a wise protection for the seed, as the shell of 
