354 
JAPANESE  ISINGLASS. 
It  is  plain  that  the  evident  tendency  of  all  these  experiments 
is  to  explain  the  ascent  of  the  sap  in  vegetables  by  capillarity. 
The  idea  is  not  new,  but  it  has  not  been  hitherto  fully  admitted, 
notwithstanding  the  experiments  which  have  been  heretofore 
made. 
Jamin  gives  it  probability  in  showing  by  decisive  experiments, 
that  porous  bodies  exercise  a  capillary  action  superior  to  the 
pressure  of  the  atmosphere ;  further,  he  gives  the  physical  the- 
ory of  capillarity  in  porous  bodies  and  succeeds  in  calculating 
the  phenomena  of  the  movement  of  liquids  in  trees.  This  is 
thoroughly  physiological.  If  the  Academy  of  Sciences  could 
award  the  great  prize  for  physiology,  for  a  work  upon  fermen- 
tation, when  it  is  not  yet  known  whether  this  purely  chemical 
phenomena  is  the  result  of  vital  action,  as  Cagniard  de  Latour 
maintains,  or  the  manifestation  of  a  mechanical  effect  as  Liebig 
explains  it,  in  his  beautiful  theory  of  fermentations, — if  this 
work  in  chemistry  deserved  the  great  prize  for  experimental 
physiology,  for  a  stronger  reason  should  they  award  this  prize 
for  the  splendid  physical  researches  of  which  we  have  just  spoken. 
— Corres.  of  J.  Nickles,  in  Am.  Jour,  of  Sci.  $  Arts,  May,  1860. 
NOTE  ON  A  MANUFACTURED  PRODUCT  OF  SEA-WEED 
CALLED  JAPANESE  ISINGLASS. 
By  Daniel  Hanbury,  F.  L.  S. 
The  communication  to  the  Acade'mie  des  Sciences  of  Paris  by 
M.  Payen*  of  the  results  of  his  examination  of  a  gelatinous 
substance  manufactured  from  sea- weed  in  China  and  Japan,  in- 
duces me  to  offer  a  few  additional  remarks  upon  the  same  subject 
and  also  to  draw  the  attention  of  the  Society  to  some  specimens 
of  the  substance  in  question.  It  will  be  most  convenient  to 
commence  with  the  specimens  of  which  I  have  two. 
1.  Under  the  incorrect  name  of  Japanese  Isinglass,  there  has 
been  lately  imported  into  London  from  Japan  a  quantity  of  a 
substance  having  the  form  of  compressed,  irregularly  four-sided 
sticks,  apparently  composed  of  shrivelled,  semi-transparent  yel- 
lowish-white membrane  ;  they  are  11  inches  long  by  from  1  to 
*Sur  la  Gelose  etles  Nids  de  Salangane,  Comptea  Rendus,  Oct.  17,  1859, 
