A history of British ferns, and allied plants / By Edward Newman.

  • Edward Newman
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A history of British ferns, and allied plants / By Edward Newman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of the sulphurous aud muriatic acid gases on plants; he describes their action as so energetic, that, in the course of two days, the whole vegetation of various species of plants may be destroyed by quantities so minute as to be altogether inappreciable by the senses. On two occasions he was able to trace the identical effects of the same kind of works (the black ash manufactory) on the great scale which his friend and himself witnessed in their researches. In one instance, the devastation committed was enormous, vegeta- tion being for the most part miserably stunted, or blasted altogether, to a distance of fully a third of a mile from the © works, in the prevailing direction of the wind.” Mr. Ells’s is an extremely pleasing and well-written paper; it is full of very valuable information, collected with industry, and arranged with care ; the experiments to which he refers are of undoubted authority, and strictly applicable to general principles in the way intended by their various authors. I think they will be received as conclusive by that large class of readers which prefers the dictum of a philosopher to the fatigue of inquiry ; but never by that limited class—that troublesome and inquiring class—which takes nothing for granted, which, in reading a well-arranged and instructive series of illustrations, argumentatively ap- plied, is continually asking, “ Quo tramite tendis?” And when, at length, the goal is discovered to which Mr. Ellis is conducting it—when he briefly concludes, “‘ Against the evils arising from such a vitiated atmosphere, the plan of Mr. Ward provides effectual protection, as the success of his establishment amply demonstrates,” then this little jury
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