who, relying on the same experiments as Reichel, supposed that the vessels of the wood convey the ascending sap, a view which made it impossible from the first to arrive at any real understanding of the movement of the sap in plants provided with organs of transpiration. But even the other great discovery which we owe to Malpighi, that leaves are organs for elaborating the food, was denied by Bonnet, who substituted for it the utterly false view, that they chiefly serve to absorb rain-water and dew. Bonnet[1], who had previously done good service to insect-biology, and had discovered the asexual propagation of aphides, having injured his eyes in these studies, found an agreeable pastime in a variety of experiments on plants. Much that he did was unimportant, yet he obtained some results, which could afterwards be turned to account by more competent persons, for the weakness of his own judgment is shown even in his more serviceable observations, such as those on the curvature of growing plants. We notice the same defect in his observations on the part played by leaves in the nutrition of the plant. It shows the character of the time that a book like Bonnet's 'Recherches sur l'usage des feuilles des plantes,' a mere accumulation of undigested facts, should have been generally considered an important production. He tells us, that his attention was called by Calandrini to the fact, that the structure of the under side of leaves seems to show that they were intended to absorb 'the dew that rises from the ground' and introduce it into the plant. Starting from this sensible suggestion, as he calls it, he proceeded to make a variety of senseless experiments
- ↑ Charles Bonnet, born at Geneva in 1720, sprang from a wealthy family, and was intended for the profession of the law, but gave himself up from an early age to scientific pursuits, and especially to zoology. He was afterwards a member of the great council of Geneva, and wrote various treatises on scientific subjects, psychology, and theology. He died on his property at Genthod near Geneva in 1793. See the 'Biographic Universelle' and Carus, 'Geschichte der Zoologie,' p. 526.
