from the earliest periods, until the more peaceful circumstances of the nation permitted them to abandon their narrow and gloomy security for the beautiful residence of Kilcolgan, an erection of the seventeenth century, the naked ruins of which now form the chief feature in the landscape to the traveller by the Grand Canal before he reaches Gillen. I am not aware that any records exist to furnish a clue to the history of Garry Castle, nor have I been able to meet any one able to give me any information about it, beyond the usual tirade about Oliver Cromwell, who seems doomed to bear on his back the weight of all the old walls in Ireland. One very old man, who in his youth had been, I believe, a servant of the Maw, was the only person in fact who seemed to know more about it than that it was "an ould castle, an' a great place in the ould times." From him I gathered a good many anecdotes of his former master, of which the following partly bears upon the present subject, and gives rather a good illustration of a class of persons not unfrequently met with, who occasionally support most extraordinary pretensions by methods still more extraordinary, claiming to be proficients in all the forgotten lore of past ages, and even in their rags hinting at powers, the possession of which would be rather enviable. The story is an odd one, but I tell it exactly as I heard it.

"I had business into Banagher one day when I was a gossoon, and just as I came to the hill over Garry Castle, I saw a great crowd moving up the road forninst me. Lord rest the sowl that's gone,' says I, crossin' myself, for by coorse I thought it was a corpse goin' to All Saints' churchyard; but when it came nearer, and I saw the Maw in the front with a whole crowd of gentlemen, some that I knew and more that I didn't, and ne'er a corpse at all with them, I made bould to ax Father Madden what might be the matther.

'Why, my boy,' says he, there's some gentlemen come all the ways from Dublin to consther what's written on the big stone over the hall chimley in the ould castle beyant, and the rest of us are going to have the laugh at their ignorance.'

''Deed, your riv'rince,' says I, an' it's the fine laugh we'll have in airnest, for sure the smallest gossoon in the country could tell them 'twas written by the Danes long ago, and that it's an enchantment.'

'Hould your tongue,' says he in return; 'whatever it is, I'll be bound it 'll puzzle them, for by the book I'm not able to read it myself."

Troth, thin,' says I, if that be the case, it's little sense the likes of them will make out of it.'

By this time, sir, we got inside the ould gateway, and as the Maw's groom was a cousin of my aunt Peg's, he let me into the hall with the rest of the quality. There was the stone, sure enough: a long narrow stone, all the length of the room, with four lines of writing cut on it, over the chimley. It was in the part of the ould castle that's down now. Well, sir, one ould gentleman-they said he belonged to that college off there in Dublin-takes his spectacles out of his pocket, an' he puts them on his nose, quite grand like, and he looks at the writing. It's not English,' says he, nor is it French,' says he after a little, nor Jarman; and then he takes another look. 'It's not Latin,' says he, and the rest of the quality shook their heads very wisely; 'it's not Greek,' says he, and they shook their heads again; it's not Hebrew,' says he, nor Chaldee, nor-pursuin' to me if I know what it is.'

Baidershin!' says Father Madden quietly: an' with that, sir, you'd think the vault above our heads 'ud split with the roars of laughing. But the great scholar didn't join in it at all, but pulls the spectacles off his nose, and crams them into his pocket, and looking very big at the priest, I'm thinking it's Baulderdash, gentlemen,' says he.

Well, sir, one after another they all tried their skill on it, and one after another they all had to acknowledge their igno

rance.

6

By the powers,' says the priest, by yer talk one 'ud think the hiryglyphics themselves were a Readin'-med-aisy to ye, an' here a plain bit of writin' puzzles ye.'

Maybe, Father Madden,' says the Maw, you'd favour us by consthering it yerself.'

No, sir,' says the priest; 'my vow won't let me read magic; but if you'd wish me to thransport the stone anywhere for you, or do any other little miracle that way, I'd be most happy to obleedge you.'

Oh, no,' says the Maw, we'll not put you to that trouble; but perhaps you would come down with us as far as the inn, and have a bit of lunch.'

With all the pleasure in life, sir,' says the priest, 'the ra

ther that I'd like to be discoorsing these larned gentlemen here;' but indeed the larned gentlemen didn't seem a bit too glad of his company, and small blame to them sure, for may the heavens be his bed, there wasn't a funnier man in the nine counties, or one fonder of followin' up a joke, an' well they knew he wasn't goin' to let them down aisy.

It wasn't long until we were on the road again, makin' for the town; an' as we were goin' along, who did we meet but a spalpeen from the county Galway, that came over as soon as he met us to beg among the quality; an' sure enough he was as poor-lookin' a crathur as ever axed a charity. His legs were bare, and all blue and brackit with could an' hardship, an' the sorra a skreed of dacint clothin' he had on him but an ould tattered breeches an' a blanket thrown over his shoulders and fastened at the throat with a big skiver; he had a bag on his back, an' a mether in one fist, an' a boolteen in the other; an' if he had any more wealth about him, sure enough it was hid safely. By the discoorse we had one with another, he soon larned about the big stone, and how it puzzled all the scholars in the parish, not to say them from Dublin, an' how the priest refused to read it because it was magic; and betther nor all, how the Maw offered five goold guineas to any poor scholar, or the like, that could explain it. 'I'd like to see that stone,' says the spalpeen. Poor-lookin' as I am,' says he, maybe I could insinse ye into the maining of it.'

Well, sir, the words were scarce out of his mouth when Mac Coghlan was tould of them. What's that you say, honest man,' says he; 'can you decypher the writing?'

I'd like to try anyhow, yer honour,' says the spalpeen; worse than fail I can't.'

'Bedad,' says Father Madden, 'it 'ud be a pity not to let you; sure if you say you know nothin' about it, wiser men nor you had to confess that same; an' as for us, why, our time will be as well spent listening to one dunce as to another.'

'Oh, by all manes,' says the Maw, we'll go back and hear what he makes of it.' So we all turned back with the spalpeen. When he came to the stone, it's a different kind of look he gave it entirely from what the quality scholars did; you'd know by the way he fixed his eye on it at the very first, that it was no saycret to him, an' he walked up an' down from one end of the lines to the other, until he had them all read.

'Now, my man,' says the Mac Coghlan, if you read it, the reward is yours,' an' he took the five goold guineas out of his purse an' showed them to him.

'I can read it, yer honour,' says the spalpeen; but what it says might be displeasin' to some of this company, an' I had betther hould my tongue.'

By my word,' says Mac Coghlan, 'let who will be offended by it, no part of the blame shall rest on your shoulders, so speak out, an' speak true.'

Well, yer honour,' says the spalpeen, takin' courage, 'what it says is this, that this castle was built on such a time, an' that it will stand whole an' sound for three hundred years an' no more; an' that it's to be held by eleven Mac Coghlan heirs, and the eleventh will be the last of his race.'

Bad news for the twelfth,' says Father Madden, ‘to have an ould stone barrin' him out of the world that way;' and with that they all laughed, all but the Maw, an' he was as pale as death an' stupid-like, for the three hundred years were just run out, an' he was the eleventh heir; but in a minute or two he recovered himself and joined in the laugh as well as the rest.

Well, my man,' says he at last, you have done what all the learned men in the land couldn't do, an' though the news isn't the pleasantest, you must have your reward. Now listen to me: give up your wandering life and settle here; I'll give you a house an' five acres free of rent for ever: this money will set you up, an' I promise you that you shall never want in my time, short as it is to be. Will you take my offer?'

Why, thin,' says the spalpeen, many thanks by coorse to yer honour for makin' it; but for all the land yer honour has, or one of your name ever had, I wouldn't live other than I do: though I'm here now, 'tis many a mile from where I slept last night, or maybe from where I'll sleep to-night. Goold or silver avails me little, or if they did, maybe I could tell where to find what 'ud buy Galway ten times over.'

Bedad, honest man,' says Father Madden, if you know so much as all that, it 'ud be a great charity entirely for you to stop awhile an' open school here; I'll be bound you'll have a fine lot of scholars, an' I don't say but myself 'ud be among the number.'

Troth there's many a man 'ud like to have my knowledge, I have no doubt,' says the spalpeen; but I'm thinkin' there's few here or elsewhere 'ud like to learn in the school where I got it.'

Lord save us!' says the priest; you didn't sell yourself to the ould boy for it, did you, you nasty brute?'

I bought it with the past an' not with the future,' says the spalpeen; an' what ye saw of it is nothing to what I could show if I had a mind: the blessin' of the poor be with your honour, if it be any use to you, an' it's wishin' I am that I had a luckier story to tell you,' and he turned to go away.

Well, my good fellow,' says the Maw, any how you're not goin' to quit so soon. Neither gentle nor simple passes this road without eating with the Mac Coghlan, an' you must follow the rule as well as another: stay as long as you like, an' go when you like; an' I give you my word you shall have the best of tratement, an' no one shall bother you with any questions you don't like.'

Yer honour,' says the spalpeen, 'I'm not a young man, an' yet my head was never this many a night twice on the same pillow, an' you'd be a long day findin' out the spot that in that time I havn't visited.'

'Jew or Gentile,' says the spalpeen, a wanderer I am, an' a wanderer I must be; an' now good bye to ye all, an' God bless ye;' and with that away he walked, an' the never a sight of him did any one in Banagher lay his eyes on since. Some said he was this and some said he was that, and more said he was a sperrit; but what do ye think but the great scholars from Dublin, to hide their ignorance, gave out that he was somebody that Father Madden tuthored for the purpose to make little of thim an' their larnin', and have the laugh against thim.'

Next morning when all the counthry went out of curiosity to see the big stone, they found it torn down an' carried off, for Mac Coghlan got it taken down in the night an' buried somewhere; but, any how, it tould nothin' but the truth, for in a few years afther, the castle fell with the frost, an' not long afther that Mac Coghlan died; an' sure you know yourself that he was the last of his name." A. M.C.

We should be grateful to any of our correspondents who would favour us with a biographical sketch of the last Mac Coghlan, of whom so many stories are still related by the peasantry of the King's County, and of whom the following sketch is given in Mr Brewer's Beauties of Ireland: it is from the pen of the late Chevalier Colonel de Montmorency. P. "Thomas Coghlan, Esq.-or, in attention to local phraseology, the Maw' [that is, Mac], for he was not known or addressed in his own domain by any other appellation—was a remarkably handsome man; gallant, eccentric; proud, satirical; hospitable in the extreme, and of expensive habits. In disdain of modern times he adhered to the national customs of Ireland, and the modes of living practised by his ancestors. His house was ever open to strangers. His tenants held their lands at will, and paid their rents, according to the ancient fashion, partly in kind, and the remainder in money. The Maw' levied the fines of mortmain when a vassal died. He became heir to the defunct farmer; and no law was admissible, or practised, within the precincts of Mac Coghlan's domain, but such as savoured of the Brehon code. It must be observed, however, that, most commonly, the Maw's' commands, enforced by the impressive application of his horsewhip, instantly decided a litigated point! From this brief outline it might be supposed that we were talking of Ireland early in the seventeenth century, but Mr Coghlan died not longer back than about the year 1790. With him perished the rude grandeur of his long-drawn line. He died without issue, and destitute of any legitimate male representative to inherit his name, although most of his followers were of the sept of the Coghlans, none of whom, however, were strictly qualified, or were suffered by the Maw,' to use the Mac, or to claim any relationship with himself. His great estate passed at his decease to the son of his sister, the late Right Hon. Denis Bowes Daly, of Daly's-town, county of Galway, who likewise had no children, and who, shortly before his death in 1821, sold the Mac Coghlan estate to divers persons, the chief purchaser being Thomas Bernard, Esq. M. P., in whom the larger proportion of the property is now vested."

6

THE ROYAL FAMILY OF STATEN-ISLAND. IT has long been the general belief that the gipsy race, which is found every where else, has never yet penetrated into America; but the opinion is erroneous. There is a family on Staten-Island whose history and habits prove their Zingaro descent, despite the counter evidence of their white skins, patches of which may be seen through the rents of their tatters, like intervals of blue sky in a clouded empyrean.

The patriarch of the horde was in his lifetime reputed an Englishman, although upon this point no intelligence exists in any parish register or book of heraldry a matter the less to be regretted that his birth is not likely to be disputed by rival nations or cities. All that is certainly known of him is, that he made his appearance on the island about forty years ago, an incarnation of laziness and pauperism, accompanied by a biped of the feminine gender, whom, as God made her, we are content to call a woman: they evinced no desire to hold fellowship with their kind, but immediately plunged into the woods, where they pertinaciously hid whatever talents and merits they possessed. Probably the world used them ill, and like Timon they had left it in disgust. They built themselves a hut of brushwood, and lived, unknowing and unknown, upon the wild products of the soil and the sea-shore, the world forgetting and the world forgot. No one was favoured with any notice of their former history; they wrought not for hire, nor did they seek to render themselves in the slightest degree useful to their fellow-creatures. They were satisfied with a bare, mysterious existence, the objects of wonder and pity; and only proved themselves human by increasing the population of Staten-Land with ten sons and daughters.

In time the he-patriarch died, and his fame died with him; but not till he had so indoctrinated his hopeful family, that they have ever since followed his praiseworthy example. A short time since we paid these Children of the Mist a visit at their residence, profiting by one of a thousand changes of abode which brought them within an easy walk of the Quarantine-Ground. Others may seek objects of interest abroad; we are content with what may be found near home; and in this singular family we found a happy practical illustration of the Golden Age, which poets so much regret, and agrarian politicians so devoutly hope and expect to restore. By the margin of a stagnant swamp, rife with malaria and intermittent fever, embosomed in thick woods, stood a pen of rough boards, obtained heaven knows how, about ten feet square, into which about fifty specimens of animal life, human and canine, were crowded. The den was roofed over, and refused entrance to the sun, but was by no means so inhospitable to the rain. The four winds of heaven sought and found free ingress and egress through the chinks; the floor was not; and altogether we have seen much better appointed pig-styes. We first discovered our proximity to this Temple of the Winds by the greeting of a herd of sorry curs, who made a great noise, but retreated snarling, and with averted tails, at the first exhibition of a stone or a stick, as the dogs of the aborigines are wont to do. A shrill, cracked, but clear voice from within, uplifted in energetic objurgation, stilled the clamour, and we entered upon a scene that beggars and defies description. We had seen poverty before, but had never an adequate conception of its extreme until now.

A bundle of rags, endowed with suspicious and alarming powers of locomotion, advanced to do the honours of the mansion. An unearthly squeak, that would have driven a parrot of any ear distracted, proclaimed that the thing was human; and after close inspection we made out a set of features which we could only have supposed to belong to Calvin Edson or the Witch of Endor. The head surmounted a withered atomy, from which every muscular fibre seemed to have dried away. There was nothing left for Decay to prey upon: a particle more of waste, and the fabric must have evaporated, or been scattered with the first puff, like a pinch of snuff. This was the worthy mother of the brood. Age could not make her head whiter. She must have been more than a century old, and yet hearing, vision, speech, every faculty, was unimpaired, and she was as brisk as any of the horde. According to all appearances, Time had lost all power over her, and she may yet live longer than the everlasting pyramids. Fancy a mummy stalking from its case, and you have some idea of this spectral apparition.

Around the den were arranged without arrangement four rude bedsteads, guiltless then and for ever of beds, or any succcdaneum therefor; these being unnecessary and enervat

It is the thought that that dear face

Oh, bitter, bitter pain !

Is blotted out through time and space
For ever from my brain!
My mother, darling, lay my head
Upon thy own lov'd breast,
And let thy voice low music shed
To lull thy child to rest;

And press thy soft and dewy kiss
Upon his beating brow,

And let him feel, or fancy bliss

'Tis all that's left him now.

What though the noonday's sunny prime
Can yield unnumbered charms,
Give me the silent midnight time

That lays me in thy arms.

For there I dream of joy and light,
The things I once could prize,
Ere darkness threw its dreary blight
Upon my glad young eyes.

And in the same bright dreamy thought,
I gaze upon once more

My mother's face, with feeling fraught
E'en deeper than of yore.

Yet do not weep, my mother dear,
Thy love is more than light---
Thy soothing hand, thy tender tear,
More blessed e'en than sight!

And while that hand is clasped in mine,

My fault'ring steps to guide,

I will not murmur or repine,

Or grieve for aught beside.

But, mother, when I soar away,

From life's drear darkness free,

Oh! shall I not through heaven's long day Live gazing upon thee !

"WELL," said Andrew Furlong to James Lacey, "well! that ginger cordial, of all the things I ever tasted, is the nicest and warmest. It's beautiful stuff; and so cheap.' "What good does it do ye, Andrew? and what want have you of it?" inquired James Lacey.

"What good does it do me!" repeated Andrew, rubbing his forehead in a manner that showed he was perplexed by the question; "why, no great good, to be sure; and I can't say I've any want of it; for since I became a member of the Total Abstinence Society,' I've lost the megrim in my head and the weakness I used to have about my heart. I'm as strong and hearty in myself as any one can be, God be praised! And sure, James, neither of us could turn out in such a coat as this, this time twelvemonth."

"And that's true," replied James; "but we must remember that if leaving off whisky enables us to show a good habit, taking to ginger cordial,' or any thing of that kind, will soon wear a hole in it."

"You are always fond of your fun," replied Andrew. "How can you prove that?"

"Easy enough," said James. "Intoxication was the worst part of a whisky-drinking habit; but it was not the only bad part. It spent TIME, and it spent what well-managed time always gives, MONEY. Now, though they do say-mind, I'm not quite sure about it, for they may put things in it they don't own to, and your eyes look brighter, and your cheek more flushed than if you had been drinking nothing stronger than milk or water-but they do say that ginger cordials, and all kinds of cordials, do not intoxicate. I will grant this; but you cannot deny that they waste both time and money."

"Oh, bother!" exclaimed Andrew. I only went with two or three other boys to have a glass, and I don't think we spent more than half an hour-not three quarters, certainly; and there's no great harm in laying out a penny or twopence that way, now and again."

66

Half an hour even, breaks a day," said James, "and what is worse, it unsettles the mind for work; and we ought to be very careful of any return to the old habit, that has destroyed many of us, body and soul, and made the name of an Irishman a by-word and a reproach, instead of

a glory and an honour. A penny, Andrew, breaks the silver shilling into coppers; and twopence will buy half a stone of potatoes-that's a consideration. If we don't manage to keep things comfortable at home, the women won't have the heart to mend the coat. Not," added James with a sly smile, "that I can deny having taken to TEMPERANCE CORDIALS myself." "You!" shouted Andrew, "you, and a pretty fellow you are to be blaming me, and then forced to confess you have taken to them yourself. But I suppose they'll wear no hole in your coat? Oh, to be sure not, you are such a good manager!"

"Indeed," answered James, "I was anything but a good manager eighteen months ago: as you well know, I was in rags, never at my work of a Monday, and seldom on Tuesday. My poor wife, my gentle patient Mary, often bore hard words; and though she will not own it, I fear still harder blows, when I had driven away my senses. My children were pale, half-starved, naked creatures, disputing a potato with the pig my wife tried to keep to pay the rent, well knowing I would never do it. Now

"None of these—and yet it's the rale thing, my boy."

"Well, then," persisted Andrew, "let's have a drop of it; you're not going, I'm sure, to drink by yerself—and as I've broke the afternoon"

A very heavy shadow passed over James's face, for he saw that there must have been something hotter than even ginger in the "temperance cordial," as it is falsely called, that Andrew had taken, or else he would have endeavoured to redeem lost time, not to waste more; and he thought how much better the REAL temperance cordial was, that, instead of exciting the brain, only warms the heart.

"No," he replied after a pause, "I must go and finish what I was about; but this evening at seven o'clock meet me at the end of our lane, and then I'll be very happy of your company.

Andrew was sorely puzzled to discover what James's cordial could be, and was forced to confess to himself that he hoped it would be different from what he had taken that afternoon, which certainly had made him feel confused and inactive. At the appointed hour the friends met in the lane. "Which way do we go?" inquired Andrew. "Home," was James's brief reply.

"Oh, you take it at home?" said Andrew. "I make it at home," answered James.

"Well," observed Andrew, "that's very good of the woman that owns ye. Now, mine takes on so about a drop of any thing, that she's as hard almost on the cordials as she used to be on the whisky."

"My Mary helps to make mine," observed James. "And do you bottle it or keep it on draught?" inquired Andrew, very much interested in the "cordial" question. James laughed very heartily at this, and answered,

Oh, I keep mine on draught always on draught; there's nothing like having plenty of a good thing, so I keep mine always on draught;" and then James laughed again, and so heartily, that Andrew thought surely his real temperance cordial must contain something quite as strong as what he had blamed him for taking.

James's cottage door was open, and as they approached it they saw a good deal of what was going forward within. A square table, placed in the centre of the little kitchen, was covered by a clean white cloth knives, forks, and plates for the whole family, were ranged upon it in excellent order; the hearth had been swept, the house was clean, the children rosy, well dressed, and all doing something. Mary," whom her husband had characterised as "the patient," was busy and bustling, in the very act of adding to the coffee, which was steaming on the table, the substantial accompaniments of fried eggs and bacon, with a large dish of potatoes. When the children saw their father, they ran to meet him with a great shout, and clung around to tell him all they had done that day. The eldest girl declared she had achieved the heel of a stocking; one boy wanted his father to come and see how straight he had planted the cabbages; while another avowed his proficiency in addition, and volunteered to do a sum instanter upon a slate which he had just cleaned. Happi

ness in a cottage seems always more real than it does in a gorgeous palace. It is not wasted in large rooms-it is concentrated-a great deal of love in a small space a great, great deal of joy and hope within narrow walls, and compressed, as it were, by a low roof. Is it not a blessed thing that the most moderate means become enlarged by the affections?that the love of a peasant within his sphere, is as deep, as fervent, as true, as lasting, as sweet, as the love of a prince? -that all our best and purest affections will grow and expand in the poorest worldly soil?—and that we need not be rich to be happy? James felt all this and more when he entered his cottage, and was thankful to God who had opened his eyes, and taught him what a number of this world's gifts, that were within even his humble reach, might be enjoyed without sin. He stood a poor but happy father within the sacred temple of his home; and Andrew had the warm heart of an Irishman beating in his bosom, and consequently shared his joy.

"I told you," said James, I had the true temperance cordial at home-do you not see it in the simple prosperity by which, owing to the blessings of temperance, I am surrounded? do you not see it in the rosy cheeks of my children, in the smiling eyes of my wife did I not tell truly that she helped to make it? Is not this a true cordial," he continued, while his own eyes glistened with manly tears, "is not the prosperity of this cottage a true temperance cordial ?-and is it not always on draught, flowing from an ever-filling fountain ? Am I not right, Andrew; and will you not forthwith take my receipt, and make it for yourself? You will never wish for any other: it is warmer than ginger, and sweeter than anniseed. I am sure you will agree with me that a loving wife, in the enjoyment of the humble comforts which an industrious sober husband can bestow, smiling, healthy, well-clad children, and a clean cabin, where the fear of God banishes all other fears, make

THE TRUE TEMPERANCE CORDIAL!"

THE SAP IN VEGETABLES.

FIRST ARTICLE.

BOTANISTS describe two kinds of vegetable sap; the one is called the ascending or unelaborated sap, the other the descending or elaborated sap. If a young branch be cut across in the spring season, the newly exposed surfaces will be found rapidly to cover themselves with a dew, especially that portion which is continuous with the trunk this moisture is the ascending sap while if during the summer or autumn a piece of twine be tightly drawn and knotted round a young branch of lilac, the part above this ligature will shortly become swollen, and will bulge out on every side, in consequence of an impediment having been thus presented to the downward flow of the descending sap, which will be therefore forced to accumulate in the situation described. The reader may perceive that the origin from whence these two kinds of sap are derived, their chemical composition, the part of the vegetable through which they pass, the causes which produce the ascent of one and the descent of the other, together with the uses of both in the vegetable economy, are questions of great interest, as well to the farmer as the horticulturist.

The source from whence the ascending sap is derived is the aliment absorbed by the roots from the soil. This aliment consists essentially of two substances; one of these being sufficiently familiar, namely, water; and the other commonly existing in the atmosphere under the form of gas or air, but likewise capable of solution in water, namely, carbonic acid; this substance is known to every one as the cause, by its escape, of the boiling appearance seen in freshly uncorked soda water. These two substances constitute the necessary aliment of vegetables: at the same time it is notorious that various matters, such as manures, earths, &c, greatly facilitate the growth of plants; but these matters produce this effect either by supplying a greater quantity of carbonic acid, or by acting in a manner similar to condiments; for in the same way as spices taken into the stomach along with food invigorate the digestive power, so do many minerals, when absorbed by the roots, operate in promoting the nutrition of vegetables.

The chemical composition of the ascending sap is chiefly a solution of sugar and gum in water. In the northern states of America, sugar in large quantities is obtained from some species of maple, principally the sugar maple and swamp maple of Canada, by boring the stem, collecting the ascending sap which flows from the wound, and evaporating away its

watery portions. It is an interesting question, from whence proceed the sugar and gum contained in this ascending sap? The only satisfactory reply to this question is, that these substances become formed out of the water and carbonic acid absorbed from the soil; but this is a transformation which cannot be effected by the most expert chemist, so that we find in this, as in many other instances, a living body is a laboratory in which Nature exccutes changes far transcending the loftiest efforts of man's ingenuity.

The part of the vegetable through which the sap ascends can be easily shown in any of the ordinary trees of this country. If a branch from a currant shrub be placed with its inferior and newly cut surface immersed at first in a solution of green vitriol and afterwards in an infusion of nutgalls, the course through which these fluids ascend may be traced by the black colour produced by their mixture; for every one knows that a mixture of green vitriol and nutgalls produces ink, and in the experiment just described, the solutions of these substances following each other in their ascent, inscribe in a manner on the interior of the branch the path which they successively pursued. This course will be found to exist between the bark and the pith, these parts being quite unchanged, while the intermediate portion of wood will be deeply coloured.

The causes which produce the ascent of the sap are of a very powerful nature. The celebrated Hales ascertained that a vine branch, in a few days, sucked up water with a force equal to the weight of sixteen pounds on the square inch: this was a power greater than atmospheric pressure; and when it is recollected that the pressure of the atmosphere is capable of lifting thirty-three or thirty-four feet of water in a common pump, some estimate may be formed of the force with which the sap ascends. This ascent appears to be produced by the influence of two causes: the one, a quality peculiar to living beings, by which the buds in common with all growing organs are capable of attracting or sucking towards them the juices necessary for their nutrition; and in agreement with this, the sap is found to ascend in the first instance near the buds: the other, a general property of all matter which has been but lately discovered. This latter property, which has been called endosmose, is found to operate when two fluids of different densities are separated by a membrane. Under these circumstances, and in obedience to an attraction for each other, both fluids pass through the membrane, and mix together; but the denser and thicker fluid finding a greater difficulty to penetrate the membrane than the lighter and thinner, consequently passes through in less quantity. To illustrate this, let us suppose a bladder containing a little syrup, and placed in a vessel of water, and we will have the conditions necessary for endosmose: the syrup and water will both pass through the bladder in opposite directions, but a greater quantity of water will pass into the syrup, than of the latter into the water. It will be evident to the reader that this excess of thin liquid passing into the denser will constitute a force or power which will require an equal force to neutralise it; and it has been ascertained that the tendency of water to penetrate a membrane for the purpose of mixing with a syrup of once and a third its own specific weight, required a force equal to sixty-three pounds on the square inch to overcome it. Now, a plant growing in the ground is similarly circumstanced to the bladder in this experiment: its roots furnished with extremities of spongy membrane are interposed between thin water and carbonic acid externally, and a syrupy solution of sugar and gum internally. Now, under these circumstances we need not be surprised if an endosmose should operate, abundantly sufficient to elevate the sap with a force even greater than that determined by Hales.

The use of the ascending sap in the vegetable economy is the last subject which we shall consider in this article. On a future occasion we shall endeavour to show that it is out of the ascending sap that the descending or elaborated sap is chiefly formed; but besides this utility of the ascending sap, as the source of the descending sap, the former has special functions of its own to perform. If we inquire what period of the year is the ascending sap in greatest quantity, we shall find it to be during the spring season. Now, this is the time when the buds become pushed out into branches, and the young leaves peep forth: the roots also during this season increase in thickness. Another means which we possess of ascertaining the uses of this sap, is by protecting plants from the influence of light in total darkness no elaborated sap is ever formed; therefore, whatever vegetation may then take place, must be solely at the expense of the ascending sap. Under such