A large number of trials had been previously made with solutions of one part of the nitrate and phosphate of ammonia to 43750 of water (i.e. one grain to 100 ounces), and these were found highly efficient.  Fourteen leaves were therefore placed, each in thirty minims of a solution of one part of the carbonate to the above quantity of water; so that each leaf received 1/1600 of a grain (.0405 mg.).  The glands were not much darkened.  Ten of the leaves were not affected, or only very slightly so.  Four, however, were strongly affected; the first having all the tentacles, except forty, inflected in 47 m.; in 6 hrs. 30 m. all except eight; and after 4 hrs. the blade itself.  The second leaf after 9 m. had all its tentacles except nine inflected; after 6 hrs. 30 m. these nine were sub-inflected; the blade having become much inflected in 4 hrs.  The third leaf after 1 hr. 6 m. had all but forty tentacles inflected.  The fourth, after 2 hrs. 5 m., had about half its tentacles and after 4 hrs. all but forty-five inflected.  Leaves which were immersed in water at the same time were not at all affected, with the exception of one; and this not until 8 hrs. had elapsed.  Hence there can be no doubt that a highly sensitive leaf, if immersed in a solution, so that all the glands are enabled to absorb, is acted on by 1/1600 of a grain of the carbonate.  Assuming that the leaf, which was a large one, and which had all its tentacles excepting eight inflected, bore 170 glands, each gland could have absorbed only 1/268800 of a grain (.00024 mg.); yet this sufficed to act on each of the 162 tentacles which were inflected.  But as only four out of the above fourteen leaves were plainly affected, this is nearly the minimum dose which is efficient.

Aggregation of the Protoplasm from the Action of Carbonate of Ammonia.—­I have fully described in the third chapter the remarkable effects of moderately strong doses of this salt in causing the aggregation of the protoplasm within the cells of the glands and tentacles; and here my object is merely to show what small doses suffice.  A leaf was immersed in twenty minims (1.183 ml.) of a solution of one part to 1750 of water, [page 146] and another leaf in the same quantity of a solution of one part to 3062; in the former case aggregation occurred in 4 m., in the latter in 11 m.  A leaf was then immersed in twenty minims of a solution of one part to 4375 of water, so that it received 1/240 of a grain (.27 mg.); in 5 m. there was a slight change of colour in the glands, and in 15 m. small spheres of protoplasm were formed in the cells beneath the glands of all the tentacles.  In these cases there could not be a shadow of a doubt about the action of the solution.