the white, or albuminous part of the egg. This is the nutritious matter, which is to form the food of the little embryo, from the first day that hatching commences, onwards till brain, heart, stomach, and even the rudiments of claws and feathers are in due time developed. From the first day, a network of minute blood-vessels begins to shoot out over the membranes of the yolk; and day after day, these continue to absorb the white albumen, taking it up, and assimilating it into the bones and muscles of the chick; till at last, towards the end of the twentieth or twenty-first day, just as the creature is ready to burst its shell and come out into the sunny day, the whole yolk, or red part, is absorbed also, as a substantial luncheon, to serve it till it can pick up its dinner for itself. Let us now turn to the bean. If we cautiously pick off the external covering, we shall find immediately under the dark spot or eye painted on its outside, the germ or embryo of the future plant, in appearance like a little pointed tongue. It, too, is snugly and conveniently situated between the meeting edges of the two lobes of the bean. Now these two lobes or cotyledons are also the provision store of the young bean-germ. They consist, as everybody knows, of solid bean flour, that is, of starch, sugar, and gluten-matters in no way different essentially from the white and red of the egg-but they have not, so to speak, undergone such an exquisite cookery. At least, the chick would not be disposed to say so, for fowls as well as men love the smack of sulphur with which the egg is charged, and also the higher artistic cookery which has been bestowed on the oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon. But to the bean-germ, which is less of an epicure than the chick, the bean-bread is all in all; only being dry, and perhaps hard with a year or two of age, it has to be moistened. No sooner is it put into the earth, than heat and moisture begin to work wonderful changes; the dry and inert meal starts into activity, and a fermentation commences, and goes on very much like the process of beer-making; till at last the bean-lobes become, in fact, a cup of good strong ale. In the meantime, a change has come over the bean-germ-a very different change, however, from what has taken place in the lobes. In the lobes, a simple chemical action has been induced, and a complete change of the elementary atoms has been the consequence. But the cells of the germ have been influenced in a very different way. A vital activity has entered into them, and they are already feeding upon and assimilating the liquid stores of the cotyledons. Soon rootlets and leaf-bud begin to be developed; and in due time the beangerm, like the chick, bursts its cerements, and shoots forth a living plant, its roots pushing down with eagerness into the soil, there to draw their proper nourishment, and the leaf bursting out into the glorious summer-day, to wait upon and worship the sun, its presiding guardian. British Quarterly Review. USES OF PLANTS. As the predominant ingredient in plants is carbon, so one of their chief uses seems to be to fix and consolidate this material in such a form as to make it available for the use of animals. Part of this carbon, taken in as food and air by animals, forms the material which generates and maintains their animal heat; the remainder becomes, in the shape of wood or of coal, the material which feeds our fires, and enables us to enjoy a sufficiently high temperature in the absence of the solar heat. Animals, by the process of respiration, exhale carbonic acid, which would in time vitiate the atmosphere, were it not that plants greedily absorb this acid, and, after appropriating the carbon, give out the oxygen, which in its turn is suited to the healthy respiration of animals. Vegetable substances, either directly or indirectly, feed all animal beings. It would be somewhat curious to investigate how much of the actual food of man is derived solely from the vegetable kingdom. It is true we northern nations are exceedingly carnivorous; but in sunnier climes, the food of the great mass of the people is almost solely vegetable. Rice, maize, sago, yams, and acidulous fruits, are the staple diet of the natives of warm climates. In Great Britain, many millions of quarters of wheat, barley, and other grains are consumed annually as food, and in the making of ale, beer, and spirituous liquors. The quantity of potatoes used is also very great; and in the mere matter of luxury, 48,000,000 lbs. of tobacco, 160,000,000 lbs. of tea, and 34,000,000 lbs. of coffee are also annually consumed within the United Kingdom. Nor are we less indebted to the vegetable world for our clothes and warmth than for our food. In this country 13,000,000 cwts. of cotton are annually manufactured into various articles of clothing; and not fewer than 120,000,000 tons of coal, besides wood, are consumed as fire throughout the year. This same material of coal, indeed, which is undoubtedly a vegetable production, exhibits to us the amazing fecundity of the soil in ages long past, for if we take the coalfields of America, of Britain, of Belgium, and other parts of the world, we shall find that the mass of carboniferous matter thus stored up in subterranean cellars is almost beyond our powers of calculation. In the great valley of the Mississippi alone there is a coalfield of nearly 200,000 square miles. The number of vegetable species that are useful to man far exceeds that of animals; and, what is remarkable enough, almost every fresh discovery of new countries brings to us some useful plant, while very few useful animals have been added to our stock for many centuries. The inestimable potato is of itself, perhaps, worth, in its economical use, nearly all the animals in the world. The Peruvian bark, the source of our quinine, with many other useful medicines, we also owe to the New World; while the Eastern Archipelago contributes to us one of the most universally useful gums, the Gutta-Percha. But apart from the important uses of vegetables in the economy of the world, plants are, as it were, the poetry of nature, the gilding and embroidery of the plains and valleys, the splendid arborescent plumes of the mountains. With that superabundant beneficence which the Author of Nature displays in all His arrangements, the vegetable world, be sides furnishing man with the materials of food and clothing, also ministers to his delight in the beautiful. There is a refinement and delicacy in the forms and colours of plants: their organic elements are more purely compounded as regards the senses of man, than those of animals; even their decay and decomposition are less offensive than those of animals. To plants we owe all the pure and ethereal sensations of smell-our finest essences, our most aromatic oils, our nard, cassia, and attar of roses. When the most enthusiastic poet sings of the exquisite beauty of his mistress, he can only compare her to the lily. When we wish to adorn the young and blooming bride, we deck her with the rose, or with the more modest jasmine or myrtle. When we desire to soothe our bereavements by paying honour to the corse of the departed friend, we strew flowers of appropriate memorial on the grave. British Quarterly Review. YARDLEY OAK. THOU wast a bauble once, a cup and ball Which babes might play with; and the thievish jay, Thou fell'st mature; and in the loamy clod, And all the elements thy puny growth Fostering propitious, thou becamest a twig. Who lived when thou wast such? Oh, couldst thou speak, As in Dodona once thy kindred trees Oracular, I would not curious ask The future, best unknown, but at thy mouth Time made thee what thou wast-king of the woods; (Unless verse rescue thee awhile) a thing COWPER. Figurative language is opposed to ordinary, plain, or literal speech; and a figure of speech may be defined to be a distinguished mode of speech which results from a peculiar state of mind suited to itself, and expresses the thought of a writer or speaker more vividly and happily than ordinary language. Thus, when we say of vicious indulgence, "that the enjoyment of it is short, the recollection bitter and lasting," we express a common idea in common language. When we use the lines "Pleasure known but by its wings, we convey the same idea in the language of figure. Figures are the language of nature, not an invention of art; and *The substance of this lesson is taken from an ingenious Essay on the Figures of Speech, by the late Rev. Alex. Carson of Dublin. |