ceding night. A bottle of linfeed oil had been left on a table, clofe to which a cheft stood, which contained fome coarfe cotton cloth; in the course of the night the bottle of oil was thrown down, and broken on the cheft (by rats moft probably), and part of the oil ran into the cheft, and on the cloth: when the cheft was opened in the morning, the cloth was found in a very strong degree of heat, and partly reduced to tinder, and the wood of the box difcoloured, as from burning. After a moft minute examination, no appearance of any other inflammable fubftance could be found, and how the cloth could have been reduced to the condition in which it was found, no one could even conjecture. The idea which occurred, and which made Mr. Golding fo uneafy, was, that of an attempt to burn the arfenal. Thus matters were when I joined him, and when he told me the ftory and fhewed me the remainder of the cloth. It luckily happened, that in fome chemical amufements, I had occafion to confult Hopfon's book a very few days before, and met with this particular paffage, which I read with a determination to purfue the experiment at fome future period, but had neglected to do fo. The moment I faw the cloth, the fimilarity of circumftances ftruck me fo forcibly, that I fent for the book and fhewed it to Mr. Golding, who agreed with me, that it appeared fufficient to account for the accident. However, to convince our felves, we took a piece of the fame kind of cloth, wetted it with linfeed oil, and put it into a box, which was locked and carried to his quar ters. In about three hours the box began to fmoke, when, on opening it, the cloth was found exactly in the fame condition as that which had given us fo much uneafinets in the morning; and on opening the cloth, and admitting the external air, it burft into fire. This was fufficiently convincing: however, to make it more certain, the experiment was three times tried, and with the fame fuccefs." P. S. The paffage Mr. Humfries alludes to, is in page 629 of Hopfon's Chymiftry, where, in a note, you will find mention made of a fet of chymical experiments made on inflammable fubftances by a Mr. Georgi, of the Imperial academy of Petersburgh, in confequence of the burning of a Ruffian frigate at Cronstadt, in 1781, although no fire had been made on board of her for five days before. per mandible bent at the tip, and rather longer than the under; irides hazel; noftrils befet with briftles; top of the head, neck, back, and tail coverts olive-green; throat and cheeks yellow, paler on the breaft; belly and vent of a most beautiful filvery white; through the ey paffes a yellow line; wings and coverts brown, edged with green; the tail confifts of twelve feathers, rather forked, and of a brown co lour, edged with green on the exterior webs, and with white on the interior, the first feather wanting the green edge; under part of the fhoulder, bright yellow; legs rather more than an inch long, of a horn-colour; claws paler. This is undoubtedly a new fpecies in England, and I believe a non-defcript: it inhabits woods, and comes with the reft of the fummer warblers, and in manners is much the fame, running up and down trees in fearch of infects. the Motacilla Trochilus (Linn.) in being larger, and white on the under parts, which are yellow in the Trochilus. The three which I opened were all males: I fhall ftill continue my researches for the female with the neft and eggs; and if I fhould at any time meet with them, I fhall with pleasure fubmit my obfervations to the Linnean Society. Objections against the perceptivity of plants, fo far as is evinced by their external motions, in anfwer to Dr. Percival's memoir in the Manchefter Tranfactions, by Robert Townfon, efq. F.R.S. Edinburgh; from the fame, p. 267. H I heard it first, early in May, in Whitenight's Park, near Reading; it was there hopping about on the upper branch of a very high pine, and having a very fingular and fingle note, it attracted my attention, being very much like that of the Emberiza Miliaria (Linn.), but foOWEVER fanguine we may aftonishingly fhrill, that I heard it at be in our expectations of more than a hundred yards diftance: extending the limits of human knowthis it repeated once in three or ledge, we cannot avoid perceiving, four minutes. that there are boundaries which it never can exceed. Thefe boundaries are the limited faculties of the human mind, which, though fully fufficient to answer all the purposes of common life, are an infuperable barrier to the enquiries of fpeculative men. None feel more the truth of this obfervation, than those engaged in phyfiological enquiries; the operations of nature being fo complicated, and at the fame time carried on in fo fecret a manner, as to keep us ignorant of the most common phenomena. I never heard thefe birds before laft fpring, and nevertheless I have heard nine in the course of a month; four in Whitenight's Park, and five in my tour to the Ifle of Wight, viz. one in a wood at Stratfield-fea, one at East Strattonpark, two in the New Foreft, and one in a wood near Highclere: I have not heard it fince June 6.Colonel Montague informed me, he had met with it in Wiltshire, and had called it the Wood Wren; it has also been heard near Uxbridge. It differs from the Motacilla Hippolais (Linn.), in being much larger, of a finer green colour on the upper parts, and more beautiful white beneath; alfo in the yellow Streak paffing through the eye, which in the Hippolais pafles above and below the eye. It differs alfo from If phyfiologifts have been unfuc cefsful in many of their enquiries into the animal economy, they have been ftill more fo with refpect to vegetables: for how little do we know at this day of the courfe of their fluids, and of the power by which they are moved? Are we Y 2 not not in the vegetable kingdom where we were near two centuries ago in the animal, when the great Harvey withdrew the veil? The many beautiful analogies exifting between the two organized kingdoms of nature, their fimilar origin from egg to feed, their fubfequent developement, and nourifhment by intus-fufception; the power of continuing their fpecies, the limited time of their exiftence, and, when not carried off by difcafe and premature death, poffeffing in themselves the caufe of their own deftruction; have been fo favourable to the fuppofition of the exiftence of a complete chain of beings, that there appeared to the favourers of this opinion nothing to be wanting to connect them, but the loco-motive, faculty; for irritability, from phenomena in a few vegetables, had been granted them by fome. This loco-motive faculty, which is confidered as a confequence of volition, which is an attribute of mind, they fay is manifefted in the direction of the roots towards the foil which affords them their moft proper nourifhment, and in the direction of the tender shoots and leaves towards the light, which is likewife neceffary to their well-being. Thefe facts are admitted, but not the confequence drawn from them. It must indeed be allowed, that vegetables do on fome occafions act as though poffeffed of volition, avoiding thofe things that are injurious to them, and turning towards thofe that are beneficial; thus appearing to act by choice, which muft be preceded by perceptivity, a favour that nature has granted, } think to the animal world alone. The following are brought as examples: + A palm-tree twenty feet high, growing upon the top of a wall, traitened for nourishment in that barren fituation, directed its roots down the fide of the wall, till they reached the ground ten feet below. It has been amply repaid, fay they, for its trouble ever fince, by plen ty of nourishment, and a more v gorous vegetation has been the confequence. On another occa fion, a plant being placed in a dark room, where light was admitted only through an aperture, put forth its fhoots towards the aperture, which elongating paffed through it; and this likewife was rewarded for its trouble, by plenty of light and free air. That appearances fo fimilar to thofe that are obferved in animals, fhould be confidered as proceeding from the fame caufe, viz. volition, is not to be wondered at, when fo many of the inferior orders of animals hardly poffefs so much of the loco-motive faculty; particularly by men of warm imaginations, who, prepoffeffed in favour of an opinion, were grafping at every dif tant analogy to fupport it. Though, as I have faid, we are by no means acquainted with the courfe of their proper fluids (fucci proprii), or with the power by which they are moved, nor even can fay by what power it is that the fluids, which are its food, are taken in: yet fo far we know, that here, as in the animal economy, there is a conftant change and evolution of their Dr. Percival, Manchester Tranfactions ↑ Manchester Tranfactions. fluids, Muids, and that a conftant fupply is neceffary, without which they foon perish. This fupply, fo necellary, muft be taken in by abforption; and it is this act of abforption that I fhall endeavour to prove to be the efficient caufe of thefe motions in vegetables, and thus exclude volition from having any caufation in thefe phenomena; for it is from their not having been explained upon mechanical principles, that mind has been reforted to. Mind is in general our laft refource, when we fail in explaining natural phenomena. I could with that phyfiologifts were agreed upon the kind of abforption which takes place here, whether it be by active open-mouthed veflels, which in the common opinion takes place in the animal economy, or by capillary attraction, which is the moft general opinion in the vegetable; but the theory I fhall offer to the confideration of the Linnean Society will agree with either. The firft confideration is-That an inert fluid is in motion. Secondly-That, poffeffing no motion in itself, it owes this motion to the plant. Thirdly-That as action and reaction are equal, whilft the plant draws the fluid towards itfelf, it must be drawn towards the fluid, and that in the reverfe ratios of their respective refiftances. Now whether this abforption be performed by veffels acting as in the animal economy, or by veffels of the nature of capillary tubes, is of little moment, provided only that an abforption be admitted; for it is evident, that if action and reaction be the fame, the abforbed fluids, which poffefs no motion in themselves, cannot be put in motion by the open-mouthed active veffels, without being drawn in the direction of the abforbed fluids.But fhould we prefer the theory which explains this abforption by capillary attraction, which theory I think is the most prevalent, we fhall ftill find that the absorbing veffels are drawn towards the fluid. This is equally true as evident, whether applied to that fimple hydraulic inftrument, the ftraw, through which the fchool-boy fucks, or to the most complicated machine of the natural philofopher.Thefe principles will, I think, be fufficient to explain thofe appearances in vegetables which have ferved as a foundation, or have been confidered as figns of their perceptivity and volition, and which, as far as I have learnt, have never been attempted to be explained, viz. the direction of their roots towards the foil which affords them the beft nourishment, and the young and tender fhoots towards the light: for here is an abforption of water and light. The abforption of water is eafily afcertained; but that of light, by its fubtlenefs, eludes our experiments, with probably many. other fluids of great importance to the healthy ftate of the vegetable world. But to make the connexion more complete between the two organic kingdoms, it has not only. been found that plants move towards their food like wife and intelligent beings, but they likewife. turn afide from thofe foils, &c. which are injurious to them, or at leaft afford them but a fcanty nourishment. This is a déception: it is only the immediate confequence of their motion towards Y 3 their animal bodies, the efficient caufe of which may for ever remain unknown. When all is confidered, I think we fhall place this opinion amongst the many ingenious flights of the imagination, and foberly follow that blind impulfe which leads us natu rally to give fenfation and percep tivity to animal life, and to deny it to vegetables; and fo ftill fay with Ariftotle, and our great mafter Linnæus-Vegetabilia crefcunt & vivunt; animalia crefcunt, vivunt, & fentiunt. their nourishment; for when the root of a tree or plant changes its courfe, on account of meeting with a rock, or with a hard, ftiff, and barren clay, or other object that does not afford it proper nourish ment, it is owing not to any dereliction of these objects, but to no attraction from abforption acting in that direction, but one from a more favourable foil. The fmallnefs of the refiftance of thefe fluids cannot be urged against this theory: the motion to be explained is only the tendency of the nafcent fhoots, no one having pretended that the folid wood could alter its direction; and this power, however feeble, is always acting. I am not ignorant, that these are not the only motions which are thought to announce the perceptivity of plants. The motions obferved in the ftamina and other parts at the time of fecundation, the spiral direction of the stems of fome, the ufe of the cirrhi of others, and the bursting of the capfules, have all, with many other the neighbourhood of Whitepowers, been thought to favour this haven are two coal-works or opinion. These are but powers collieries, called Howguill and nature has bestowed upon them for Whinguill. The firft lies on the their preservation and production, fouth-weft part of the town, and which can no more be confidered the prefent works extend from the as the confequence of volition, than town towards the fouth about two the fall of their leaves at ftated pe- miles and a half, reaching nearly to riods, their growth and decay, which the valley called Sandwith, and in have never been confidered as the breadth about one mile and a half, confequence of mind, any more viz. from a rivulet called the Powthan the increase or deftruction of beck on the east fide to about nine Obfervations and inquiries made upon and concerning the coal-works at Whitehaven, in the county of Cumberland, in the year 1793. By Jofeph Fisher, M. D. fellow of the royal phyfical fociety in Edinburgh. From the Tranfactions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. v. p. 266. N I have read, and heard it more than once afferted, that the Lonicera and other plants with the caulis volubilis, which are twifted either dextrorfum or finiftrorfum, can change this natural direction; so that when two Lonicera, or two branches of the fame Lonicera meet, the one turns to the right, the other to the left, that they may afford to each other a better fupport. This is a mistake, and, if true, would only counteract the intention of nature, which is a mutual fupport; for this would prevent their uniting so firmly together. Some of the cirrhi of the Bryonia, &c. turn to the right, others to the jeft, but do not accommodate one another. hundred |