hat it _is_.

MRS. B.

We may study its operations, but we should puzzle ourselves to no
purpose by attempting to form an idea of its real nature.

We shall begin with examining its effects in the vegetable world, which
constitutes the simplest class of organised bodies; these we shall find
distinguished from the mineral creation, not only by their more
complicated nature, but by the power which they possess within
themselves, of forming new chemical arrangements of their constituent
parts, by means of appropriate organs. Thus, though all vegetables are
ultimately composed of hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen, (with a few other
occasional ingredients,) they separate and combine these principles by
their various organs, in a thousand ways, and form, with them, different
kinds of juices and solid parts, which exist ready made in vegetables,
and may, therefore, be considered as their immediate materials.

These are:

_Sap_,
_Mucilage_,
_Sugar_,
_Fecula_,
_Gluten_,
_Fixed Oil_,
_Volatile Oil_,
_Camphor_,
_Resins_,
_Gum Resins_,
_Balsams_,
_Caoutchouc_,
_Extractive colouring Matter_,
_Tannin_,
_Woody Fibre_,
_Vegetable Acids_, _&c._

CAROLINE.

What a long list of names! I did not suppose that a vegetable was
composed of half so many ingredients.

MRS. B.

You must not imagine that every one of these materials is formed in each
individual plant. I only mean to say, that they are all derived
exclusively from the vegetable kingdom.

EMILY.

But does each particular part of the plant, such as the root, the bark,
the stem, the seeds, the leaves, consist of one of these ingredients
only, or of several of them combined together?

MRS. B.

I believe there is no part of a plant which can be said to consist
solely of any one particular ingredient; a certain number of vegetable
materials must always be combined for the formation of any particular
part, (of a seed for instance,) and these combinations are carried on by
sets of vessels, or minute organs, which select from other parts, and
bring together, the several principles required for the development and
growth of those particular parts which they are intended to form and to
maintain.

EMILY.

And are not these combinations always regulated by the laws of chemical
attraction?

MRS. B.

No doubt; the organs of plants cannot force principles to combine that
have no attraction for each other; nor can they compel superior