1. The rectilinear and parallel arrangement of parts proper to crystalization, which is the lowest plastic power of nature known to us, continues, proximately, in the stems and branches of vegetables. This will accord with our theory, if ascribed to the abundant mineral elements present in the woody fibre, and to its insensibility and enduring nature, as shown by its integral preservation for ages after death, to a degree that rivals the rocks themselves. But the stems of trees are not exactly cylindrical and their fibres are not quite parallel; for there is something of life in them that refuses the arrangement of dead matter. From root to top they taper, but so gradually that it is only decidedly seen at considerable distances or in the whole length. 2. A section of a timber tree shows a regular concentric arrangement of rings—the successive deposits of sequent years—and its cleavage proves that it has also a radiated disposition of fibres. In the flat bones of the head this same arrangement of parts obtains. The cartilaginous base of bone has a life of perhaps equal rank with that of the vegetable structure; it has its insensibility, elasticity, and durability at least, with scarcely any higher qualities; and the osseous deposit is thrown into figure and order similar to the ligneous. 3. The fruits, kernels, and seeds of plants, being the highest results of the vegetable grade of living action, and so bordering upon the sphere of animal existence, and even intruding into it, begin to take its proper forms, and they are spheroidal, oblate spheroids, conical exactly, ovoid, and even closely touch upon the heart-shaped; yet without danger of confusion with the forms distinctive of the higher style of life. This comparison, it must be remarked also, is between the fruits of one kind and the organic structures of the other, and not of organ with organ, which in different kinds shows the greatest diversity, but of spheres of existence immediately contiguous, and therefore closely resembling each other.