148 THE PATHWAY OF SCIENCE. THE PATHWAY OF SCIENCE. E have been reading of the wonderful properties of the electro-magnetic telegraph, and it has set our fancy afloat in the wide field of speculation. The mind soars upward and onward, awakened in all its energies, struggling, grasping, expanding, with the magnificent conceptions which are awakened in the pathway and the progress of science! Science? what is it? where was it engendered? What are its achievements, and what are the limits which God has ascribed to its astounding developments? Did it belong to antiquity, or is it ours? Science! In the academy, in the lyceum, or the porch at Athens, shall we search for it? Will we go to the dark ages to trace its foot-prints? Those ages, with their "wonderful" and "illuminated" doctors, and their magnificent creeds. Ages which brought the hoary-headed Galileo, before the solemn convocation of the wise and learned, to pronounce upon him, through seven grave cardinals, the anathema of the church-"That to maintain the sun to be immovable and without local motion in the centre of the world, is an absurd proposition, false in philosophy, heretical in religion, and contrary to the testimony of the scripture; that it is equally false and absurd in philosophy to assert that the earth is not immoveable in the centre of the world, and, considered theologically, equally erroneous and heretical!" The dark ages, with Copernicus imprisoned by the pope to recant his "absurd dogmas"-with Faustus flying from Paris after his fatal bibles had been exposed for sale-the dark ages with the ponderous tomes of Thomas Aquinus, Abelard Duns Scotus, and Peter Lombard, piled up on groaning shelves-the science of the dark ages! We come to the Baconian era. Bacon, the genius of inductive science, is born. He defines its lines and teaches its limits. His pathway is upward-amazing truths-amazing developments! "Earth's disemboweled! measured are the skies! Science has been manifesting God. Where is God in nature? The illiterate and the savage see him in the whirlwind and the storm, but in ten thousand beautiful combinations is he revealed to the scientific. The earthquake causing mountains to totter on their bases, ocean to heave her immense volumes in august majesty to the sky, and bare her profound caverns-the earthquake thundering rivers from their channels, rocking down cities, and swallowing them up in yawnman universally revealed-God in his ing abysses-these are God to trembling might, in his awful magnificence! But, oh, to a few only is he in the soft beauty of the landscape, the meandering stream, the rippling fountain, the cascade, the zephyr bearing on its wings Flora's balmy fragrance, the blade of grass, the pebble, the shell-God the kind and attentive parent, God the benefactor, the friend, ministering with equal hand to the great family of living existence. with the astronomer and contemplate the Take up the book of astronomy-Go illimitable empire of worlds, and, like Newton, overpowered to trace the great law that connects them together. Examine your own earth, if you please. See it selecting with mathematical precision the only permanent axis out of an infinity of others on which it might have revolved. Observe the position of that axis tooperpendicular or parallel to the ecliptic, where would have been the seasons and animal life? reigned throughout this wide domain but What else would have solitude? dreary, dreadful, interminable solitude! The poet was not over-enthusiastic when he exclaimed - "An undevout astronomer is mad!" Contemplate with the chymist the great law of definite proportions without emotion. Trace the polarization of light, the magnet, electricity's subtle and powerful fluid pervading nature-see with the mineralogist the regular-formed and polished crystals which the great Architect has fashioned-the earth unboweled to the GREENWICH OBSERVATORY. 149 geologist, its mighty mountains penetra- | is an instrument for observing the passage ted to trace their structure and arrange- of the different heavenly bodies over the ments-its fossils sought out and inter- meridian, of eight feet in length, which is preted in evidence of rolling thousands and thousands of ages! Examine with the botanist and the anatomist organic sensibility and organic insensible nature. Everywhere and everything excites an intensity of emotion! All is great, all is wonderful, all is inexplicable! Or if mental philosophy be admitted to the dignity of science, the single discovery that the laws of association which influence memory are in themselves indestructible-that an affection of the body stimulates their action that submitted to certain modifications the whole train of past thoughts, feelings, and affections, which now seem shrouded in the dark vista of the past, may be completely developed so that no one item of life shall be lost. This fact, if clearly established, completes the dignity of the effect, man, and the cause, God, and is a field for the exercise of deep and profound thought. GREENWICH OBSERVATORY. famous as having been that used by Halley, Bradley, and Maskelyne. Bradley's zenith sector is also in one of the rooms, with which he made the observations at Kew, from which he deduced his discoveries of the aberration of light and the mutation of the earth's axis. Two small buildings, with hemispherical sliding domes, stand to the north of the observatory, which are fitted up chiefly for the observation of comets. Most of the old observatories were provided with a deep well, from the bottom of which the stars might be observed in the daytime; and that of Greenwich had also formerly an excavation of this kind, descending to the depth of a hundred feet, in the southeast corner of the garden. It is now, however, arched over. Greenwich observatory stands on the site of an old fortified tower belonging to the British crown, said to have been first erected in the early part of the fifteenth century, by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the brother of Henry V., one of the earliest patrons of learning in that country. It was either repaired or rebuilt by Henry VIII. in 1526; and continued long afterward to be considered a place of some strength. Paul Hentzner, the German traveller, says that, in the time of Elizabeth, it was known by the name of "Mirefleur," and was supposed to be the same which is mentioned in the romance of "Amadis de Gaul." MONG the existing institutions of this description, the observatory at Greenwich, of which a representation is annexed, has long The foundation-stone of the building held an eminent was laid on the tenth of August, 1675. place. It stands on the most elevated Flamsteed was appointed the first superspot in Greenwich park, and consists of intendent of the establishment, under the two buildings, one a low oblong edifice, title of astronomer royal; and he comwhich is properly the observatory, and the menced his observations in August of the other a house for the astronomer royal. following year. This great astronomer The upper part of the latter, however, be- continued to reside at the observatory till sides serving as a library-room, is also his death, on the thirty-first of December, filled with instruments; and there is a 1719, forty-three years after his appointcamera-obscura on the top of the house. ment. The results of his laborious obThe library contains many scarce and val- servations and calculations during the uable works, principally on scientific sub- whole of this period were given to the jects. The observatory is divided into world in 1725, in three volumes folio, unfour apartments, fitted up with transit cir- der the title of "Historia Celestis," an cles, quadrants, clocks, sectors, and other immortal monument of his industry and astronomical instruments. Among them genius. Flamsteed was succeeded as as REPRODUCTION OF PLANTS. tronomer royal by the great Halley, who occupied the situation twenty-three years, having died in 1742, at the age of eightyfive. His successor was another most distinguished astronomer, Bradley, the discoverer of the aberration of light, or that difference between the apparent and the true place of any of the fixed stars, which is occasioned by the motion of the earth and the motion of light from the star to the observer. After Bradley's death, which took place in 1762, Mr. Bliss held the office for two years, when he died, and gave place to the late eminent Dr. Maskelyne, who enjoyed it for a period not much short of half a century, having survived till 1810. He was succeeded by the present astronomer royal, Mr. Pond. Since 1767, the observations made by the astronomer royal at Greenwich have been annually published, under the superintendence of the royal society. The admirable instruments with which the observatory is provided, together with the ability and high character of the successive astronomers, have secured to the Greenwich observations a reputation for accuracy scarcely rivalled by those of any other similar institutions. REPRODUCTION OF PLANTS. HE main object of a plant during growth seems to be the reproduction of its kind. Whether the term of its existence be limited by a day, by a year, or by centuries, its sole effort-as it proceeds from leaf to stem, from stem to branch, and from branch to flower and fruit-is the multiplication of itself. This is effected variously; by seeds, by spores or germs, by tubers, by runners, which put forth shoots as they elongate, by branches which send down roots, by slips or detached branches, or even by single leaves. We shall notice the more remarkable of these modes as exhibiting at once the perfection of design, and the inexhaustible contrivances 151 which nature has ever at her adoption for the accomplishment of the end in view. Increase by seed is the most familiar mode of reproduction, being common to all flowering plants. Seeds are merely leaves preserved in peculiar cerements till the return of the season of growth. And here it may be remarked, that wherever we have a healthy-growing leaf, or number of leaves, there is no difficulty in rearing an independent plant, since, according to the doctrines of morphology, the leaf is the primary organ from which all other parts take their form and development. A numerous class of vegetables have their seeds composed of two leaves or lobes, as may be seen in the bean and apple; in another class, as the oat and cocoa-nut, they consist of a single lobe. But whether they have one or two lobes, in all of them the function of reproduction is of the most perfect description. To produce a fertile seed, the pollen or dusty granules which tip the stigmas must be conveyed to the pistil, and through the pistil to the embryo in the ovary. For this purpose a thousand beautiful adaptations have been called into existence. These precious granules, liable to be swept away by every breeze and shower, are protected by the sheltering calyx and corolla, which turn their backs to the wind, or droop like a pent-house to ward off the rain. And even should the pollen be scattered by accident, the pistil is covered with a fine mucilage, which intercepts and retains it in spite of every antagonist force. Some plants have the stamens and pistils in one and the same flower; in others the stigmas are in one flower and the pistil in another; while in not a few the male and female flowers are produced on separate stems-yet. in all, the means of fertilization are seldom rendered nugatory. If the male and female flower are near, they are placed to be brought in contact by the slightest waving of a branch; or if distant, the passing breeze and the limbs of the wandering bee, are the agents by which the pollen is carried to the destined receptacle. When properly matured, a seed must be provided, first, with the means of dispersion and preservation, and secondly, with a sufficiency of internal nourishment for the embryo plant, till its roots have struck into the soil, and its leaves have expanded in the atmosphere. Accordingly, some seeds are farinaceous, others albuminous, and many oleaginous-all of those products being converted, during germination, into those elements which enter into the structure of a growing plant. For the conversion of these products, a certain amount of heat and moisture is necessary; but too much heat would parch them, and too much cold or moisture would destroy their vitality. To provide against such contingencies, nature has conferred on the seeds of plants the most ingenious and perfect coverings. The cocoa has a tough fibrous coir and woody nut, impervious alike to draught and rain; the chestnut has a compact leathery envelope; the plum a hard stony drupe; the apple a fleshy pome, enclosing leathery cells; the rose a flesh hip, packed with down; the pea and bean a pod of parchment; and seeds apparently naked have either a coriaceous membrane, or have the exterior tissue so condensed that they look as if they had come from the hand of a japanner. Thus, the protection against cold, drought, moisture, and other destructive agencies, is so complete, that seeds which have been buried for centuries, have, on being brought to the surface sprung up into healthy plants; even a crop of wheat has been reared from grain found in the case of an Egyptian mummy more than three thousand years old. Equally perfect with this protection is the means for their dispersion over the surface of the globe. What could be better adapted for floating from island to island than the cocoa-nut, with its light, waterproof, fibrous coir, and woody shell? What more easily caught up by the slightest breath of air than the seeds of the thistle or dandelion, with their little parachutes of down? Or what more aptly fitted for attachment to the coats of wandering animals, than the hooked heads of the teasel and burdock? Nor does contrivance end here. Many when ripe, are ejected from the vessels which contain them with considerable force by means of elastic valves and springs. The cardamine impatient throws its ripe seed to a distance on being touched; so does the squirting cucumber, the geranium, the common broom, and others, as if they were endowed with vitality, and had a care for their embryo progeny. Some do not even part with their seeds till these have struck root as independent plants. Thus the mangrove, which flourishes amid the mud of tropical deltas and creeks, retains its berries till they have sent down long threadlike radicles into the silt below, as if it felt that the water and slime by which it was surrounded were elements too unstable to be intrusted with its offspring. Plants that reproduce themselves by spores or germs, belong to the cryptogamic or flowerless class of vegetation, as the ferns, sea-weeds, mosses, mushrooms. In many of these the reproductive spores are so minute, that they float in the air unseen; and not a dried mushroom or puff-ball that is struck by the wandering foot, but disperses thousands of its kind around it. The little brown specks on the leaf of the fern, the snuff-like powder of the puff-ball, or the dust arising from the mould of a decayed cheese, are all alike the germs of future plants; and when we consider how minute each individual is, how liable to be borne about by winds, by water, and by the coverings of animals, to which they may adhere, we shall cease to wonder at the fact, that there is not a portion of surface, organic, or inorganic, that may not be covered with their growth. The spores of the fuci, or sea-weeds, which are always surrounded by water, and covered with a mucilage that enables them to adhere to whatever solid body they touch; and, what is peculiar in this adhesive substance, it is insoluble in water. "Let chymistry," say M'Culloch, in his "Illustrations of the Attributes of a God," "name another mucilage, another substance, which water can not dissolve, though apparently already in solution with water, and then ask if this extraordinary secretion was not designed for the special end attained? and whether, also, it does not afford an example of that Power which has only to will that it may produce what it desires, even by means the most improbable?" Many plants, as the potato, reproduce themselves by both seed and tubers. Both modes, however, do not take place with equal exuberance at one and the same time. In its native region of South Amer |