s of the head, by pressing on or otherwise interrupt- | the tender disposition of woman :-"From the greater g the functions of the brain, also induce sleep; and eat corpulency, by retarding the return of blood rough the veins, and thus keeping up a pressure upon e head, is generally accompanied by a disposition to -epiness.

The period required for sleep, by different individuals, pends much upon temperament and peculiarities of nstitution, as well as on mode of life and habit. While me cannot sleep beyond five, six, or seven hours, hers, again, cannot well do with less than eight or me hours. Children sleep more than half of their me, and require it, and thrive under it; while adults ed much less repose. On a general average, eight urs has been reckoned a good allowance. Certainly eep beyond this does no good, and often does harm. order to enjoy grateful and uninterrupted sleep, it necessary that due exercise shall have been taken ring the day; that temperance in food and drink all have been observed; that strong tea or coffee, ich have a stimulating effect on the system, shall not ve been taken within an hour or two of going to bed; d that there has been no supper, or a light one. It true, gluttony and intoxication produce sometimes ep sleep, but it approaches more to an apoplectic por than the calm repose of the temperate.

THE SEXES.

delicacy of their frame, and from the numerous ailments connected with their temperament, combined with their constant familiarity with distresses which are not their own, the sympathy of women with the sufferings of others is much more lively, and their promptitude to administer relief, wherever it is possible, is much more eager than in the generality of men. To the truth of this remark every day's experience bears witness; and, from the testimony of travellers, it appears that the observation extends to women in all the different stages of society."

TEMPERAMENTS.

There are certain conditions of the bodily frame which evidently give rise to varieties of the human constitution, and which have been called temperaments. These have been peculiarly the object of attention to Dr Spurzheim, and others of the phrenological philosophers. As their views on this subject seem to us of a very clear order, a passage is here extracted from one of the journals devoted to that science. "Dr Spurzheim," says the journalist, "recognises four primary or cardinal temperaments, to which he considers all individual cases may be advantageously referred, either as pure, or much more frequently as consisting of two or more combined. I shall first give Dr Spurzheim's brief description of them, and shall afterwards enlarge upon each in detail.

In almost all animals the sexes are distinguished by difference of form and texture of their bodies; and many a superior gloss of colour in the hair or fur, a superior brilliancy of the plumage, very generally aracterises the male of the species. In most anials, too, the males are of superior size, and endowed th greater muscular strength. In the human species an is marked by a larger and more muscular body an the female; his chest is square and capacious, id particularly at the shoulders, whence it tapers adually downwards; his bones are large, and his ints firm and sinewy; his muscles are round, tense, d conspicuously marked; his limbs thick and fleshy, d his arms powerful; his skin is firm and tense, and s hair strong, crisp, and often curly. The female ure, again, is smaller, less powerful, and, in every spect, more delicately formed; the bones are less ojecting, the muscles softer, less conspicuous, and are smoothly blended one into the other; the shoulders narrow and rounded; the greatest breadth of the dy being at the pelvis, from whence it gradually pers upwards; the skin is soft and delicate; the hair nooth, and of a silken appearance. The mental quaes and dispositions differ somewhat also. Man is mmanding, resolute, daring, adventurous, addicted to ep and abstract thought, as well as to high and imanative speculations. Woman is gentle, submissive, mid; with a mind, perhaps, little inferior in compass man, she is more commonly distinguished for acute The pure lymphatic temperament is characterised by netration, nice and delicate discrimination, refined a pallid complexion, soft skin, mostly free from hairs, ad chastened taste, and elegant and playful fancy. It the hair flaxen, the pulse weak and low; a general tenas the opinion of Plato, that, with regard to the mind, dency to corpulence, and a deficiency of expression in ere is no natural difference between the sexes, but in the face. Instances of pure lymphatic temperament bunt of strength. "When the entire sexes are com- are more rare than of either of the others, and perared together," says he, "the female is doubtless the haps are never to be found, except amongst females and ferior; but in individuals, the woman has often the habitual invalids, when past middle age, who, from the dvantage of the man." With warm and tender at- want of exercise, have lost all trace of some other schinents, pure morals, and high religious feelings, she temperament which they may have possessed in youth. admirably calculated for the sacred charge of watch- The mental characteristics of the lymphatic tempeag over and training up the young, and of instilling rament are soon told; an insurmountable tendency to to their tender and susceptible minds the beautiful indolence, an aversion to exertion of either body or essons of early wisdom-of faith, truth, and charity. mind, form the hopeful traits. It is, therefore, obvious All nations, as they have advanced in civilisation, have that the restraining faculties, Cautiousness and (in some miformily increased in that respect and refined atten- of its manifestations) Secretiveness, are the only organs o which is due to the softer sex; and one of the with the operation of which it will correspond; while nost powerful minds and of the most splendid endow- all the other propensities, and the intellectual faculties, ments has been the foremost to appreciate those supe- will be enervated and restrained by it. rior qualities which are to be found in a gentle and insophisticated female. The late Professor Dugald ewart thus introduces a quotation from a well-known traveller, which affords a just and beautiful estimate of

1. The lymphatic, or phlegmatic temperament, is indicated by a pale white skin, fair hair, roundness of form, and repletion of the cellular tissue; the flesh is soft, the vital actions are languid, the pulse is feeble, and the whole frame indicates slowness and weakness in the vegetative, affective, and intellectual functions.

2. The sanguine temperament is proclaimed by a tolerable consistency of flesh, moderate plumpness of parts, light or chestnut hair, blue eyes, great activity of the arterial system, a strong, full, and frequent pulse, and an animated countenance : persons thus constituted are easily affected by external impressions, and possess greater energy than those of the former temperament.

3. The bilious temperament is characterised by black or dark hair, yellowish or brown skin, black eyes, moderately full but firm muscles, and harshly-expressed forms. Those endowed with this constitution have a strongly-marked and decided expression of countenance; they manifest great general activity and functional energy.

4. The external signs of the nervous temperament are fine thin hair, often inclining to curl, delicate health, general emaciation, and smallness of the muscles, rapidity in the muscular actions, vivacity in the sensations. The nervous system of individuals so constituted preponderates extremely, and they exhibit great nervous sensibility.'

It has been generally supposed that the sanguine constitution is produced by the perfection or redundancy of the circulatory system; and it seems such a natural supposition, that it is difficult for us to allow its

proper force to the fact, that individuals of other tem- cated companions of man, degenerate and change 1peraments are frequently found who can bear loss of natures under extreme varieties of temperatare; blood, by phlebotomy or otherwise, as well as those of the monkey tribe, which, in the structure sanguine constitutions, and in many instances much bodies and in the substances on which they id,. better. There is, however, one anatomical peculiarity proach the nearest to man, become sickly and darar which appears always to attend the sanguine. The skin and never propagate their species, when removel is much less disposed to transpiration than the bilious any of the colder regions of the globe. In orde or nervous; and, in consequence, Dr Prichard, in a enable man thus to subsist in regions having work lately published, considers that individuals pos- diversity of natural productions, he is endowed sessing it are much better calculated to bear cold than the power of feeding on and digesting every p others. The Fins, who, as a nation, are decidedly san- variety of food-he is, as compared to other ana guine, bear extraordinarily cold winters much better in respect to diet, omnivorous. We thus find the Gr than their more bilious neighbours the Laplanders. landers and inhabitants of frozen regions living Dr Prichard adds, that as the sanguine temperament exclusively on the fat and flesh of land and sea an is very rare in those warmer countries, near the spot the only species of food which the barren and ung where man was first placed by his Creator, he considers nature of the climate affords, but one, nevers the sanguine temperament as the result of a natural which, from its stimulating and nourishing rat adaptation to external circumstances, analogous to the the very best for enabling them to live under white hares and other animals of northern regions; extreme depression of temperature. The inhat: but, if this is the case, it is difficult to imagine how it of hot countries, again, will be found living is that Laplanders should continue tawny, while the fruits, and other vegetable substances, which the va Fins, situated farther south, are fair. The most strik- and genial soil produces in abundance, and whet, : ing moral feature of the sanguine temperament appears their nature, are less heating and stimulating that to be a tendency to enjoyment of the present time, with animal diet. In the intermediate and temperate reg little inclination to regret the past or to dread the a mixed diet of animal and vegetable food is pre future; and, in general, to look at either past or future Much discussion has arisen whether man be r no more than is accessory to happiness. The bilious flesh-feeding or herb-eating animal ; experience é temperament is characterised by a decided cast of fea-strates that he is equally adapted to become botatures, complexion inclining to brown, dark eyes, and he will live on an almost purely animal diet, as w black or dark brown hair, with the muscles firm and on one purely vegetable; although, were we str well marked, and the figure, in general, expressive compare the form of his jaws and teeth, and the ge- of vigour, with every motion significant and decided. structure of his intestines, with those animals tha In combination, it is frequently traced in a slight on nuts and other fruits, and farinaceous 2yellowness of the skin, which can only be detected by substances, as, for instance, the monkeys, the ar comparison, or an extraordinary acute perception of proach of these to the human structure would in colours; for example, you may frequently find two per- to us that at all events a farinaceous diet is sons, particularly ladies, the one with dark hair and suitable to his natural organisation. We pu eyes, the other with flaxen hair and blue eyes. The com- among all civilised nations that bread, and the p plexions of both would be denominated fair; on observ- and mealy roots, in some shape or other, have a ing them near each other, however, it will be seen that a preponderance in every meal. But the art of e the fairness of the dark-haired one differs considerably which man resorts to even in the first dawzz, from the clear snowy whiteness of the sanguine. civilisation, enables him to change the nature various food, and to render it more suitable b digestion and the purposes of nourishment, and gives him a wonderful superiority over all the re the animated world. Indeed, it is by this me mode of preparing his food, perhaps, as much a original strength and perfection of frame, joined * other comforts of civilisation, that he is enabled is the vicissitudes of climate, and to prolong his at longer period than the great majority of other a

With respect to the nervous temperament, it manifests itself in a remarkable quickness to learn and readiness of comprehension, but little tendency to sensual gratification, and an extraordinary power of passing from one subject to another."

MAN ADAPTED TO LIVE IN ALL CLIMATES.

Man has this superiority over all other animals, that he can inhabit every different region of the globe, however extreme the degree of temperature. He is found Man has been formed with a naked skin, w under the scorching sun and amid the arid plains of evident intention that he should clothe himself b Africa, as well as in the frost-bound regions of Spitz- own labour and ingenuity. Almost all the large: bergen; and he is found to live and thrive under these more perfect animals have a covering of hair, of fas different extremes, not only after a gradual naturalisa- or of down, which is at stated periods renewed, u tion of ages, but can even move from one country to some animals in greater length and abundance at a another, and undergo a vicissitude of climate with com- ticular seasons, to suit the variations of tempers.” parative impunity. Thus we see, even from our own But man can always adapt his clothing to the c country, emigrants going forth, and naturalising them- he inhabits, or to the varying alterations of the sa selves amid the cold regions of the north, onward to and he can at all times, by his own industry, var the very verge of the equator. The Esquimaux and renew his suits. Man, too, builds for himself a the Canadian savage will prosecute their usual employ-fortable habitation, to protect him from the incles ments of the chase in a temperature where mercury freezes into a solid mass, and where even brandy congeals to ice in apartments containing fires; while the African negro, again, feels quite at his ease in a burning climate, where the thermometer in the shade ranges from 90° to 100°, and upwards. Man has an equal facility in adapting himself to the pressure of the atmosphere attendant on low or elevated situations. In Mexico, he is found living in elevated regions, from 000 to 8000 feet above the level of the sea; and the it of Antisana, in Quito, is 15,500 feet above the of the ocean. On the contrary, we find almost all Is only adapted to live in the regions in which re naturally found; and if they are removed from ocalities, they seldom enjoy the natural period of Lives. Even the dog and the horse, the domesti

of the weather, and is not contented with a bur
under ground, or the casual shelter of the words
coppices, as is the case with the animals of the far
It is true the architecture of bees, and some other a
mals, is curious, ingeniously combined, and admir
suited to their necessities; but in comparative
splendour, or even convenience, how far are all
surpassed by the houses, and temples, and cities of t
kind! Though man is naturally defenceless and
armed, how soon does his ingenuity enable him to of
a mastery over the beasts of the field and forest, =
furnish him with weapons of defence against a
enemies! How soon does his ingenuity enable Åd"
improve and cultivate the soil-to drain marshes. '
down woods, level mountains-to select and cul
the best species of grain, and the most wholes

urishing vegetables, for food-to invent tools and gines, by which he acquires a command over the sea d land, by which he erects bridges, constructs machiry, and launches the towering vessel upon the wide ean! And, lastly, with what skill he constructs struments of art and of science, by which he can exine and investigate the most minute objects of ture, as well as bring within his sphere of obsertion other planets and other suns in the vast dome the universe!

INFANCY.

dren, they have not only to acquire the words and their proper applications, but even to master the articulation of sounds, with all their infinite combinations. The age of puberty, or that period when boyhood terminates and manhood commences, varies somewhat in different climates, according to their high or low temperature; the mean period may be reckoned about fourteen years; and, between twenty and twenty-five, the growth of the body generally terminates. About the age of thirty, man may be said to be in his full vigour, with his mental and bodily powers completely developed. Females arrive earlier at a state of maturity than males: in warm climates females are full grown as early as their ninth or tenth year; in more temperate regions, about their fifteenth or eighteenth year. The proportion of male children born to that of females, is as 21 to 20; there is thus a small superabundance of males; but, from various causes, it so happens that there is generally rather a superabundance of females actually existing in society. Among these causes may be mentioned, the greater hardships and labours to which men are exposed, the effects of war, and, on the whole, the longer life enjoyed by females. This regular proportion of male and female births throughout mankind in all ages, and in all parts of the world, shows the admirable design and precision of an unerring nature.

OLD AGE.

At the moment of birth, the infant begins to exercise independent existence, whereas before it formed a rt, and was nourished by the vessels, of its parent. general similarity takes place in the embryo growth most animals, and the familiar instance of the chick the egg may be taken as an example. The egg is mposed of a centre part, or yolk, and of the albumen, white part surrounding it. In this white part, a all darker speck may be seen floating, from whence e first rudiments of the chick are derived. In a few ys after the hen has sat on the egg to impart to it → necessary heat, a small whitish spot will be observed, ach is the first rudiments of a brain; in a few days bre, vessels will be seen spreading out from a central art, and forming a network all around; gradually appearance of a head is seen, with indications of ain and spinal marrow; the eyeballs next are formed, en the several parts of the viscera, the projections of We have seen that there is, within the animal frame, wings and legs, and lastly, the skin and rudiments a system of operations, by which a constant supply of the future feathers. During these periods of incu- nourishment is afforded to make up for the daily waste tion, the chick has been nourished by the yolk of the and decay, and that every part is constantly under2. which has gradually been absorbed by its vessels going a renewal. To view a man in the full vigour this purpose. At last, when its growth is perfected, of life, then, we might suppose that, excepting accid the whole contents of the egg converted into the dents, he was calculated to go on, in the course of aterials of its body, the little animal begins to pick a existence, for an indefinite period. The principle of le in the shell, and, by repeated efforts, bursts from life, however, seems to have limits set to its duration, shelly prison, and assumes an independent life. The beyond which it fails to keep in healthy motion the fancy of man is of much longer duration, and of a animal faculties. The apparatus of life is evidently uch more helpless nature, than the same state in any destined but to last for a certain time. Old age creeps her animals. A child cannot walk till it is at least on apace, and the vital flame burns fainter and fainter, elve months old; and even for a considerable time till at last it sinks in the socket, and is seen no more. ter that period, it has to be fed and tended with the The commencement of decay is perceptible even in most care; whereas, after a very short time, the youth itself. The child at first grows quickly, from ung of most animals are able to provide for them- the soft and yielding state of all its vessels; but gralves; in a great many, a few minutes after birth dually these begin to thicken and get harder-a greater ey are able to walk about, to search for and distin- proportion of earthy matter is adding to the bones. ish the teat of their mother, and to pick up the food The extremities grow large, while the heart itself at is suitable for them; and having remained under does not increase in an equal degree; hence the cireir maternal protection for a short space, they leave culation becomes less and less quick, till the period eir parents, and never know or distinguish them more. of full growth. When the growth of the body can is very different with the infant: during a long and proceed no farther, a degree of fatness not unfrealpless period of childhood, it is tended by a fond quently occurs. This proceeds from the superabunther, who anticipates all its wants; while it, on the dant nourishment produced from the food, which, from her hand, watches her smiles, and imitates her most the impetus or force of the circulation being more inute actions; and thus a reciprocal bond of union is lessened by the greater extension and resistance of tablished, by which not only every species of know- the body, accumulates in the cellular textures and by dge and experience is acquired for the conduct of the sides of the extreme vessels. In every part of ter life, but those moral ties and affections established the body, the induration produced by approaching hich constitute the great boast and solace of human age becomes conspicuous-in the bones now wholly ciety. Man proceeds from infancy to maturity by a brittle, in the skin, in the tendons, in the glands, in ower and more gradual expansion of the bodily struc- the arteries, and in the brain itself, which gets firmer re than any other animal, and this may be one rea- and drier. Moreover, the arteries continue to get n of his superior organisation, his greater fitness for denser, narrower, and even shut up in their minute pporting labour and fatigue, and the longer period branches. At the same time, the nerves become more which his life is extended. From infancy upwards, and more callous and insensible to the impressions of je mental powers also gradually expand. This is also the senses, and the muscles to irritation; thus, the conifferent from animals; for in them the faculty of in- tractile force of the heart, and the frequency of its pulanet at once is perfected, and never afterwards in-sations, are diminished, and, of consequence, every reases or undergoes any change. In childhood, the dental faculties are constantly active, and on the alert catch new information, inquisitive to know every ing, and imitate every gesture. The facility with which children acquire the knowledge of words, and in few months master a language, is very astonishing, shen we reflect for a moment how much time and pains t takes a grown-up person to become a proficient in any unknown language: and our astonishment will be eightened when we consider, that, in the case of chil

force which impels the blood into the ultimate vessels. The quality of humours is diminished in the denser body; the moisture which lubricates the solid parts every where manifestly decreases. Nor is the quantity of humours only diminished; they themselves likewise become vitiated. They were mild and bland in children; they are now acrid, salt, and fetid, and loaded with a great quantity of earthy matter. This circumstance of the superabundance of earthy matter is evident in the gouty concretions in the joints of old people,

CHAMBERS'S

INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE.

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF CHAMBERS'S
EDINBURGH JOURNAL, EDUCATIONAL COURSE, &c.

UMBER 36.

NEW AND IMPROVED SERIES.

VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY.-BOTANY.

PRICE lid.

GENERAL ECONOMY OF VEGETATION.

ERY one is acquainted with the usual forms of vegeles, either as herbs or trees, for they exist in all uations suitable to their growth, and constitute not ly a highly ornamental covering provided by nature the exposed surface of the earth, but, as is well own, are an inexhaustible source of nourishment to ⚫ animal races.

Plants are in the main easily distinguishable from mals, and the consideration of them falls under difent sciences. Yet it is not easy to say where the mal world ends, and the vegetable world begins. e two seem to melt into each other in the class of stences called zoophytes, which appear a combinan of both plant and animal. We are not, however, suppose that the highest class of plants are thus nected with the lowest or simplest class of animals, i that the organic world is consequently one contious chain. The two systems may be rather said to united at a point near the base of both, above which y rise side by side. Apart from this connexion, nts are to be distinguished from animals by not y certain external appearances, but by the absence them, of what animals possess, an internal principle easily described, but traceable in certain very rerkable results, namely, motion from place to place, election of advantageous circumstances, and a power adapting means to ends.

principle, it may here be stated that the parent vegetable is charged with the function of liberating germs or seeds, which vegetate as soon as brought into a condition fitted for their growth. A seed is like an egg in character, for it possesses in itself that amount of nourishment which will enable it to subsist in the ground during germination, or until it draws the means of existence from the soil and atmosphere. Most kinds of seeds, being contained in husks or shells for their preservation, are able to retain their vegetative power for a long period of time, if entirely excluded from heat, air, and moisture; thus, on turning up soil which had been covered centuries ago, a new order of vegetation is always observed to arise from the long-buried seeds. It may be further mentioned, as a provision in the economy of vegetation, that, while each species of plants is incapable of being transformed by reproduction into any other, it is possible, in some instances, as in the animal species, to produce a hybrid or mixed breed, and, with the additional means afforded by cultivation, plants and fruits may be improved in quality to a very high degree. Thus, the common sour crab, growing wild in our fields and hedges, is the uncultivated original of the different varieties of the apple. Yet, to sustain this improvement, constant culture, transplanting, crossing, or grafting, are required. The plant is only improved as respects itself, and if its seeds be allowed to grow up without culture in a poor soil, they will produce plants exactly resembling their humble original.

of the nature of life, or the vital principle, science not profess to be able to give an explanation. In The term of vegetable existence, from the period of ng the term, we only mean that power or quality germination till the final decay of the plant, is exadent in certain structures, by which they are en-tremely various : some plants are annuals, or grow but ed to incorporate with themselves those nutritive for one year or season; while others are perennial, and rticles of matter which they require, and to re- continue their growth from year to year; trees are duce structures of their own species or type. The among the longest lived plants, some being known to st simple forms of life are observable in plants whose exist for upwards of two thousand years. The repronomy is limited to mere absorption of nutrition and ductive powers of plants are likewise very varied; production; and it is only when we reach the link but it may be stated in general terms, that in each case it unites vegetables with animals, that we find any nature has provided effectual means of perpetuation, ig sensitive, a nervous energy, or spontaneous loco- either by means of roots or seeds, or by both. This. tion. With respect to the powers of reproduction, it power of reproduction is strikingly observable in such 1st be carefully impressed, that neither plants nor plants as the potato, which propagates by oviparous mals come into existence without a parentage. It seeds pendent from the stalks, and by the tubers cling8 at one time supposed that some kinds of animals, ing to the roots in the ground. In most instances, the for example, maggots, locusts, and myriads of smaller artificial deprivation of the seeds before they arrive at atures, were produced from external causes alone, maturity, incites the reproductive powers of the roots, ch as putridity or a certain state of the atmosphere; and they increase in bulk, or throw up new plants at a t such notions have long been abandoned by men of distance from the parent stem. When annuals have ience, and it is placed beyond the possibility of doubt ripened their oviparous offspring (grain in the ear, for at all animals and vegetables whatsoever, notwith- instance), the object of their growth is accomplished, inding any mystery that may attach to their appear- and they forthwith droop and decay. ce, are the offspring of others of their own type. The method of reproduction, as will be afterwards own, is different in different plants, but, as a general

*Bee ZOOLOGY, Number 34, in the present series.

The development of vegetable life is greatly dependent on certain concurring agents, among which, in a particular manner, are included heat, air, moisture, light, and soil. Each of these agents, however, is limited to a certain range, and this range is different in different plants,