The smallness of the doses of the nitrate, and more especially of the phosphate of ammonia, which cause the tentacles of immersed leaves to be inflected, is perhaps the most remarkable fact recorded in this volume. When we see that much less than the millionth* of a grain of the phosphate, absorbed by a gland of one of the exterior tentacles, causes it to bend, it may be thought that the effects of the solution on the glands of the disc have been overlooked; namely, the transmission of a motor impulse from them to the exterior tentacles. No doubt the movements of the latter are thus aided; but the aid thus rendered must be insignificant; for we know that a drop containing as much as the 1/3840 of a grain placed on the disc is only just able to cause the outer tentacles of a highly sensitive leaf to bend. It is cer- * It is scarcely possible to realise what a million means. The best illustration which I have met with is that given by Mr. Croll, who says,—Take a narrow strip of paper 83 ft. 4 in. in length, and stretch it along the wall of a large hall; then mark off at one end the tenth of an inch. This tenth will represent a hundred, and the entire strip a million. [page 170] tainly a most surprising fact that the 1/19760000 of a grain, or in round numbers the one-twenty-millionth of a grain (.0000033 mg.), of the phosphate should affect any plant, or indeed any animal; and as this salt contains 35.33 per cent. of water of crystallisation, the efficient elements are reduced to 1/30555126 of a grain, or in round numbers to one-thirty-millionth of a grain (.00000216 mg.). The solution, moreover, in these experiments was diluted in the proportion of one part of the salt to 2,187,500 of water, or one grain to 5000 oz. The reader will perhaps best realise this degree of dilution by remembering that 5000 oz. would more than fill a 31-gallon cask; and that to this large body of water one grain of the salt was added; only half a drachm, or thirty minims, of the solution being poured over a leaf. Yet this amount sufficed to cause the inflection of almost every tentacle, and often of the blade of the leaf. I am well aware that this statement will at first appear incredible to almost everyone. Drosera is far from rivalling the power of the spectroscope, but it can detect, as shown by the movements of its leaves, a very much smaller quantity of the phosphate of ammonia than the most skilful chemist can of any substance.* My results were for a long time incredible