the top on. "On account of these movements in the latex, the
laticiferous vessels have been denominated cinenchymatous." I do not
venture to print the expressions which I here mentally make use of.

15. Stay,--here, at last, in Article 264, is something to the purpose: "It
appears then that, in the case of Exogenous plants, the fluid matter in the
soil, containing different substances in solution, is sucked up by the
extremities of the roots." Yes, but how of the pine trees on yonder
rock?--Is there any sap in the rock, or water either? The moisture must be
seized during actual rain on the root, or stored up from the snow; stored
up, any way, in a tranquil, not actively sappy, state, till the time comes
for its change, of which there is no account here.

16. I have only one chance left now. Lindley's "Introduction to Botany."
'Sap,'--yes,--'General motion of.' II. 325. "The course which is taken by
the sap, after entering a plant, is the first subject for consideration."
My dear doctor, I have learned nearly whatever I know of plant structure
from you, and am grateful; and that it is little, is not your fault, but
mine. But this--let me say it with all sincere respect--is not what you
should have told me here. You know, far better than I, that 'sap' never
does enter a plant at all; but only salt, or earth and water, {49} and that
the roots alone could not make it; and that, therefore, the course of it
must be, in great part, the result or process of the actual making. But I
will read now, patiently; for I know you will tell me much that is worth
hearing, though not perhaps what I want.

Yes; now that I have read Lindley's statement carefully, I find it is full
of precious things; and this is what, with thinking over it, I can gather
for you.

17. First, towards the end of January,--as the light enlarges, and the
trees revive from their rest,--there is a general liquefaction of the blood
of St. Januarius in their stems; and I suppose there is really a great deal
of moisture rapidly absorbed from the earth in most cases; and that this
absorption is a great help to the sun in drying the winter's damp out of it
for us: then, with that strange vital power,--which scientific people are
usually as afraid of naming as common people are afraid of naming
Death,--the tree gives the gathered earth and water a changed existence;
and to this new-born liquid an upward motion from the earth, as our blood
has from the heart; for the