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are sheltered from the injurious effects of rain or dews, and the cold nocturnal air.

The propriety of applying the term sleep to these phenomena may, however, be disputed; and the occurrence of them ascribed to the absence of the stimulus of light. But although this may have some share in producing these effects, yet it can only act as a partial cause, which indeed operates in a very similar manner on animals; for the absence of light is also favourable to their sleep, and this fact seems to point out the analogy between sleep, strictly so called, and the effects which take place in plants, under the circumstances above mentioned.

However, leaving it to abler physiologists to decide on the propriety of the term, it is at all events very evident that an interval of rest is as necessary to the health and vigour of the vegetable, as it is to that of the animal.

Many other examples of instinctive and spontaneous motion in vegetables might be adduced; but it is not necessary to particularize more in this place, as the instances already noticed are fully sufficient to show that plants have the power of self-motion; and as they contribute thereby to their well-being, it is reasonable to conclude that they are, like animals, also capable of instinctive actions: and if instinct is the consequence or the necessary adjunct of sensation in the one, it is more than probable it is so likewise in the other.

Indeed, it is supposed by Darwin that they even possess voluntary power; and this he infers from their "being subject to sleep." He says that as the sleep of animals consists in the suspension of voluntary motion, and as vegetables are likewise subject to sleep,-there is reason to conclude that the various acts of opening and closing their petals and foliage may be justly ascribed to a voluntary power; for without the faculty of volition, sleep would not have been necessary to them*.

The several phenomena which have been noticed on this curious subject, do certainly afford some ground for supposing that sleep is more or less necessary to the

* Vide DARWIN's Zoonomia; also Botanic Garden-Note on Chunda.

welfare of vegetables, as well as to that of animals. But although there is in this state "a suspension of voluntary motion," at least in those animals which are endued with this power, yet it does not necessarily follow that sleep is a criterion of its existence, for volition is an attribute of mind, associated with a degree of rationality, which, in most animals, is compensated for by that instinctive power which I have before endeavoured to show is distinct from volition: I do not apprehend, therefore, that sleep is necessarily indicative of the existence of a voluntary power, although it may be so of a sensitive one.

When we speak of a living animal, we naturally associate the idea of sensation with that of its existence; but this does not, at the same time, give us any notion of the particular nature of the pleasure or pain of which the animal is susceptible. The same impressions will create very different sensations in animals of different species; and this difference will probably be still greater between those animals which inhabit different elements. Some of each class are furnished with similar organs of sense; which organs appear to be constructed on the same plan in the individuals of each element; but yet we shall find a peculiarity of structure adapted to the economy of the species: and that peculiarity of structure, as well as the different nature of the element in which they exist, must consequently occasion a difference in their respective sensations. Hence, as vegetables are necessarily so different from animals, in their mode of existence, it is very evident that we cannot form any idea how they feel affected under any circumstances; but we are not on that account to conclude that they are destitute of every kind of sensation. "As they possess life, irritability, and motion, spontaneously directing their organs to what is natural and beneficial to them, and flourishing according to their success in satisfying their wantsmay not the exercise of their vital functions be attended with some degree of sensation, however low, and some consequent share of happiness *?"

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* Vide SMITH's Introduction to Botany.

CURIOUS TENURE

AT CASTOR, IN LINCOLNSHIRE.

I ANNEX, for the perusal of the curious readers of the Enquirer, an account of a singular custom annually practised here; and recommend to antiquarians an enquiry concerning the origin of it.

The manor of Broughton is held of the lord of the manor of Castor, or of Harden, a hamlet in the parish of Castor, by the following service. On Palm Sunday, a person from Broughton attends with a new cart whip, made in a particular manner; and, after cracking it three times in the church porch, marches with it upon his shoulder through the middle isle into the choir, where he takes his place in the lord of the manor's seat. There he remains till the minister comes to the second lesson; he then quits his seat with his whip, having a purse that ought to contain thirty silver pennies (for which, however, of late years, half a crown has been substituted) fixed to the end of its lash, and kneeling down on a cushion, or mat, before the reading desk, he holds the purse suspended over the minister's head all the time he is reading this second lesson; after which he returns to his seat. The whip and purse are left at the manor-house. Some ingenious persons have devised a reason for every circumstance of this ceremony. They suppose that the thirty pennies are meant to signify the thirty pieces of silver mentioned in the second lesson, which Judas received to betray his master; that the three cracks of the whip in the porch, allude to Peter's denying his Lord thrice, &c. &c. These conjectures, I apprehend, have more of fancy than of truth in them; and I indulge the hope that a more satisfactory derivation of this curious ceremony will be given in the next Number of the Enquirer.

Castor, June 5, 1812.

B.

Il Decamerone di Boccaccio, in the Roxburgh Library. Ar the sale of the late Duke of Roxburgh's library, at his residence in St. James' Square, the first edition of Il Decamerone di Boccaccio, folio, Venet. Valdarfee, 1471, of which no other perfect copy is known to exist, was sold on the 17th of June, for £2260, to the Marquis of Blandford; the following is a correct progressive list of the different biddings, and which presents, in my opinion, a pretty strong and curious symptom of book-mania.

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At the same sale the Giunti Edition of the Decamerone, 1521, sold for twenty-nine pounds, and the counterfeit of the same for two pounds thirteen shillings *.

SIVAD.

SIMPLE RULE FOR GAUGING CYLINDERS, BY MR. W. NICHOLSON, BLOOMSBURY SQUARE, LONdon.

MULTIPLY the diameter of any cylinder, in inches, by itself, and cut off the right-hand figure, and the remaining figures express the ale gallons in a yard length of that cylinder, near enough for almost every practical purpose; it giving only one gallon in 379 too little; (whence the results may easily be corrected when necessary) or suppose the gallon to contain 282.744 cubic inches, instead of 282.

Demonstration. Let d be the diameter in inches; then, by a well known rule in mensuration, dd × 7854 x36282 the content, in ale gallons, of a yard of such cylinder, dd × 28.2744 ÷ 282, = dd ÷ 10 × 282.744282, dd÷ 10 × 1.002638 = dd ÷ 10x (1+3), which is extremely near the true result, instead of dd÷10, obtained by omitting dd÷ 10 X 2. E. D.

ON YEAST USED IN BREWING.

As some of your readers may be inclined to believe that the query inserted in your first Number, respecting the exchange of yeast, has no foundation in practice, being perhaps contrary to the experience of private brewers, who brew only small quantities; I beg leave to quote the following passage in support of it, from "Richardson's Theoretic Hints on Brewing."

OBSERVATOR.

"It is a well-known fact, that yeast, used as a ferment, and invariably continued for a length of time, the produce of one gyle supplying the ferment of the next, does so far degenerate, that (like the degeneracy of corn sown upon the same field which produces it,

The marks whereby to distinguish the true from the counterfeit edition, may be found at p. 175, vol. II. of the Enquirer.

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