The Botanic Garden Volume I Part 35

Its figures do not allude to private history; they represent a part of the Elusinian mysteries; marriage of Cupid and Psyche; procession of torches; the figures in one compartment represent MORTAL LIFE in the act of expiring, and HUMANKIND attending to her with concern; Adam and Eve hyeroglyphic figures; Abel and Cain other hyeroglyphic figures; on the other compartment is represented IMMORTAL LIFE, the Manes or Ghost descending into Elisium is led on by DIVINE LOVE, and received by IMMORTAL LIFE, and conducted to Pluto; Tree of Life and Knowledge are emblematical; the figure at the bottom is of Atis, the first great Hierophant, or teacher of mysteries.

NOTE XXIII ... COAL.

1. A fountain of fossile tar in Shrops.h.i.+re; has been distilled from the coal-beds beneath, and condensed in the cavities of a sand-rock; the coal beneath is deprived of its bitumen in part; bitumen sublimed at Matlock into cavities lined with spar. 2. Coal has been exposed to heat; woody fibres and vegetable seeds in coal at Bovey and Polesworth; upper part of coal-beds more bituminous at Beaudesert; thin stratum of asphaltum near Caulk; upper part of coal-bed worse at Alfreton; upper stratum of no value at Widdrington; alum at West-Hallum; at Bilston. 3.

Coal at Coalbrooke-Dale has been immersed in the sea, shewn by sea- sh.e.l.ls; marks of violence in the colliery at Mendip and at Ticknal; Lead-ore and spar in coal-beds; gravel over coal near Lichfield; Coal produced from mora.s.ses shewn by fern-leaves, and bog-sh.e.l.ls, and muscle- sh.e.l.ls; by some parts of coal being still woody; from Lock Neagh and Bovey, and the Temple of the devil; fixed alcali; oil.

NOTE XXIV ... GRANITE.

Granite the lowest stratum of the earth yet known; porphory, trap, Moor- stone, Whin-stone, slate, basaltes, all volcanic productions dissolved in red-hot water; volcanos in granite strata; differ from the heat of mora.s.ses from fermentation; the nucleus of the earth ejected from the sun? was the sun originally a planet? supposed section of the globe.

NOTE XXV ... EVAPORATION.

I. Solution of water in air; in the matter of heat; pulse-gla.s.s. 2. Heat is the princ.i.p.al cause of evaporation; thermometer cooled by evaporation of ether; heat given from steam to the worm-tub; warmth accompanying rain. 3. Steam condensed on the eduction of heat; moisture on cold walls; south-west and north-east winds. 4. Solution of salt and of blue vitriol in the matter of heat. II. Other vapours may precipitate steam and form rain. 1. Cold the princ.i.p.al cause of devaporation; hence the steam dissolved in heat is precipitated, but that dissolved in air remains even in frosts; south-west wind. 2. North-east winds mixing with south-west winds produce rain; because the cold particles of air of the north-east acquire some of the matter of heat from the south-west winds.

3. Devaporation from mechanical expansion of air, as in the receiver of an air-pump; summer-clouds appear and vanish; when the barometers sink without change of wind the weather becomes colder. 4. Solution of water in electric fluid dubious. 5. Barometer sinks from the lessened gravity of the air, and from the rain having less pressure as it falls; a mixture of a solution of water in calorique with an aerial solution of water is lighter than dry air; breath of animals in cold weather why condensed into visible vapour and dissolved again.

NOTE XXVI ... SPRINGS.

Lowest strata of the earth appear on the highest hills; springs from dews sliding between them; mountains are colder than plains; 1. from their being insulated in the air; 2. from their enlarged surface; 3.

from the rarety of the air it becomes a better conductor of heat; 4. by the air on mountains being mechanically rarefied as it ascends; 5.

gravitation of the matter of heat; 6. the das.h.i.+ng of clouds against hills; of fogs against trees; springs stronger in hot days with cold nights; streams from subterranean caverns; from beneath the snow on the Alps.

NOTE XXVII ... Sh.e.l.l-FISH.

The armour of the Echinus moveable; holds itself in storms to stones by 1200 or 2000 strings: Nautilus rows and sails; renders its sh.e.l.l buoyant: Pinna and Cancer; Byssus of the antients was the beard of the Pinna; as fine as the silk is spun by the silk-worm; gloves made of it; the beard of muscles produces sickness; Indian weed; tendons of rats tails.

NOTE XXVIII ... STURGEON.

Sturgeon's mouth like a purse; without teeth; tendrils like worms hang before his lips, which entice small fish and sea-insects mistaking them for worms; his skin used for covering carriages; isingla.s.s made from it; cavear from the sp.a.w.n.

NOTE XXIX ... OIL ON WATER.

Oil and water do not touch; a second drop of oil will not diffuse itself on the preceeding one; hence it stills the waves; divers for pearl carry oil in their mouths; oil on water produces prismatic colours; oiled cork circulates on water; a phial of oil and water made to oscillate.

NOTE x.x.x ... s.h.i.+P-WORM.

The Teredo has calcareous jaws; a new enemy; they perish when they meet together in their ligneous ca.n.a.ls; United Provinces alarmed for the piles of the banks of Zeland; were destroyed by a severe winter.

NOTE x.x.xI ... MAELSTROM.

A whirlpool on the coast of Norway; pa.s.ses through a subterraneous cavity; less violent when the tide is up; eddies become hollow in the middle; heavy bodies are thrown out by eddies; light ones retained; oil and water whirled in a phial; hurricanes explained.

NOTE x.x.xII ... GLACIERS.

Snow in contact with the earth is in a state of thaw; ice-houses; rivers from beneath the snow; rime in spring vanishes by its contact with the earth; and snow by its evaporation and contact with the earth; moss vegetates beneath the snow; and Alpine plants perish at Upsal for want of show.

NOTE x.x.xIII ... WINDS.

Air is perpetually subject to increase and to diminution; Oxygene is perpetually produced from vegetables in the suns.h.i.+ne, and from clouds in the light, and from water; Azote is perpetually produced from animal and vegetable putrefaction, or combustion; from springs of water; volatile alcali; fixed alcali; sea-water; they are both perpetually diminished by their contact with the soil, producing nitre; Oxygene is diminished in the production of all acids; Azote by the growth of animal bodies; charcoal in burning consumes double its weight of pure air; every barrel of red-lead absorbes 2000 cubic feet of vital air; air obtained from variety of substances by Dr. Priestley; Officina aeris in the polar circle, and at the Line. _South-west winds_; their westerly direction from the less velocity of the earth's surface; the contrary in respect to north-east winds; South-west winds consist of regions of air from the south; and north-east winds of regions of air from the north; when the south-west prevails for weeks and the barometer sinks to 28, what becomes of above one fifteenth part of the atmosphere; 1. It is not carried back by superior currents; 2. Not from its loss of moisture; 3.

Not carried over the pole; 4. Not owing to atmospheric tides or mountains; 5. It is absorbed at the polar circle; hence south-west winds and rain; south-west sometimes cold. _North-east winds_ consist of air from the north; cold by the evaporation of ice; are dry winds; 1. Not supplied by superior current; 2. The whole atmosphere increased in quant.i.ty by air set at liberty from its combinations in the polar circles. _South-east winds_ consist of north winds driven back. _North- west winds_ consist of south-west winds driven back; north-west winds of America bring frost; owing to a vertical spiral eddy of air between the eastern coast and the Apalachian mountains; hence the greater cold of North America. _Trade-winds_; air over the Line always hotter than at the tropics; trade-winds gain their easterly direction from the greater velocity of the earth's surface at the line; not supplied by superior currents; supplied by decomposed water in the sun's great light; 1.

Because there are no constant rains in the tract of the trade-winds; 2.

Because there is no condensible vapour above three or four miles high at the line. _Monsoons and tornadoes_; some places at the tropic become warmer when the sun is vertical than at the line; hence the air ascends, supplied on one side by the north-east winds, and on the other by the south-west; whence an ascending eddy or tornado, raising water from the sea, or sand from the desert, and incessant rains; air diminished to the northward produces south-west winds; tornadoes from heavier air above sinking through lighter air below, which rises through a perforation; hence trees are thrown down in a narrow line of twenty or forty yards broad, the sea rises like a cone, with great rain and lightning. _Land and sea breezes_; sea less heated than land; tropical islands more heated in the day than the sea, and are cooled more in the night.

_Conclusion_; irregular winds from other causes; only two original winds north and south; different sounds of north-east and south-west winds; a Bear or Dragon in the arctic circle that swallows at times and disembogues again above one fifteenth part of the atmosphere; wind- instruments; recapitulation.

NOTE x.x.xIV ... VEGETABLE PERSPIRATION.

Pure air from Dr. Priestley's vegetable matter, and from vegetable leaves, owing to decomposition of water; the hydrogene retained by the vegetables; plants in the shade are _tanned_ green by the sun's light; animal skins are _tanned_ yellow by the retention of hydrogene; much pure air from dew on a sunny morning; bleaching why sooner performed on cotton than linen; bees wax bleached; metals calcined by decomposition of water; oil bleached in the light becomes yellow again in the dark; nitrous acid coloured by being exposed to the sun; vegetables perspire more than animals, hence in the sun-s.h.i.+ne they purify air more by their perspiration than they injure it by their respiration; they grow fastest in their sleep.

NOTE x.x.xV ... VEGETABLE PLACENTATION.

Buds the viviparous offspring of vegetables; placentation in bulbs and seeds; placentation of buds in the roots, hence the rising of sap in the spring, as in vines, birch, which ceases as soon as the leaves expand; production of the leaf of Horse-chesnut, and of its new bud; oil of vitriol on the bud of Mimosa killed the leaf also; placentation shewn from the sweetness of the sap; no umbilical artery in vegetables.

NOTE x.x.xVI ... VEGETABLE CIRCULATION.

Buds set in the ground will grow if prevented from bleeding to death by a cement; vegetables require no muscles of locomotion, no stomach or bowels, no general system of veins; they have, 1. Three systems of absorbent vessels; 2. Two pulmonary systems; 3. Arterial systems; 4.

Glands; 5. Organs of reproduction; 6. muscles. I. Absorbent system evinced by experiments by coloured absorptions in fig-tree and picris; called air-vessels erroneously; spiral structure of absorbent vessels; retrograde motion of them like the throats of cows. II. Pulmonary arteries in the leaves, and pulmonary veins; no general system of veins shewn by experiment; no heart; the arteries act like the vena portarum of the liver; pulmonary system in the petals of flowers; circulation owing to living irritability; vegetable absorption more powerful than animal, as in vines; not by capillary attraction.

NOTE x.x.xVII ... VEGETABLE RESPIRATION.

I. Leaves not perspiratory organs, nor excretory ones; lungs of animals.

1. Great surfaces of leaves. 2. Vegetable blood changes colour in the leaves; experiment with spurge; with picris. 3. Upper surface of the leaf only acts as a respiratory organ. 4. Upper surface repels moisture; leaves laid on water. 5. Leaves killed by oil like insects; muscles at the foot-stalks of leaves. 6. Use of light to vegetable leaves; experiments of Priestley, Ingenhouze, and Scheel. 7. Vegetable circulation similar to that of fish. II. Another pulmonary system belongs to flowers; colours of flowers. 1. Vascular structure of the corol. 2. Glands producing honey, wax, &c. perish with the corol. 3.

Many flowers have no green leaves attending them, as Colchic.u.m. 4.

Corols not for the defence of the stamens. 5. Corol of h.e.l.leborus Niger changes to a calyx. 6. Green leaves not necessary to the fruit-bud; green leaves of Colchic.u.m belong to the new bulb not to the flower. 7.

Flower-bud after the corol falls is simply an uterus; mature flowers not injured by taking of the green leaves. 8. Inosculation of vegetable vessels.

NOTE x.x.xVIII ... VEGETABLE IMPREGNATION.

Seeds in broom discovered twenty days before the flower opens; progress of the seed after impregnation; seeds exist before fecundation; a.n.a.logy between seeds and eggs; progress of the egg within the hen; sp.a.w.n of frogs and of fish; male Salamander; marine plants project a liquor not a powder; seminal fluid diluted with water, if a stimulus only? Male and female influence necessary in animals, insects, and vegetables, both in production of seeds and buds; does the embryon seed produce the surrounding fruit, like insects in gall-nuts?

NOTE x.x.xIX ... VEGETABLE GLANDULATION.

Vegetable glands cannot be injected with coloured fluids; essential oil; wax; honey; nectary, its complicate apparatus; exposes the honey to the air like the lacrymal gland; honey is nutritious; the male and female parts of flowers copulate and die like moths and b.u.t.terflies, and are fed like them with honey; anthers supposed to become insects; depredation of the honey and wax injurious to plants; honey-dew; honey oxygenated by exposure to air; necessary for the production of sensibility; the provision for the embryon plant of honey, sugar, starch, &c. supplies food to numerous cla.s.ses of animals; various vegetable secretions as gum tragacanth, camphor, elemi, anime, turpentine, balsam of Mecca, aloe, myrrh, elastic resin, manna, sugar, wax, tallow, and many other concrete juices; vegetable digestion; chemical production of sugar would multiply mankind; economy of nature.