polyhedric by their increase and mutual compression."

10. Now these figures, 38 and 39, which profess to represent this change,
show us sixteen oval cells, such as at A, (Fig. 24) enlarged into thirteen
larger, and flattish, hexagons!--B, placed at a totally different angle.

And before I can give you the figure revised with any available accuracy, I
must know why or how the cells are enlarged, and in what direction.

Do their walls lengthen laterally when they are empty, or does the
'matière' inside stuff them more out, (itself increased from what sources?)
when they are full? In either case, during this change from circle to
hexagon, is the marrow getting thicker without getting longer? If so, the
change in the angle of the cells is intentional, and probably is so; but
the number of cells should have been the same: and further, the term
'hexagonal' can only be applied to the _section_ of a tubular cell, as in
honeycomb, so that the floor and ceiling of our pith cell are left
undescribed.

11. Having got thus much of (partly conjectural) idea of the mechanical
structure of marrow, here follows the solitary vital, or mortal, fact in
the whole business, given in one crushing sentence at the close:---

"The medullary tissue" (first time of using this fine phrase for the
marrow,--why can't he say marrowy tissue--'tissue moelleuse'?) "appears
very early struck with atony," ('atonic,' want of tone,) "above all, in its
central parts." And so ends all he has to say for the present about the
marrow! and it never appears to occur to him for a moment, that if indeed
the noblest trees live all their lives in a state of healthy and robust
paralysis, it is a distinction, hitherto unheard of, between vegetables and