On carbonic acid as a solvent in the process of vegetation

Abstract

In this paper the author describes the results of experiments made with water saturated with carbonic acid, in many instances condensed by pressure and supersaturated, on the more important inorganic elements of plants, compounds not soluble in water alone, such as phosphate of lime, silica, &c. These results appear to prove that this acid performs in the economy of growing plants a double function; one well-known, already carefully studied, by which, undergoing decomposition in the leaves under the influence of solar light, it supplies carbon to the growing vegetable, and restores oxygen to the atmosphere; the other, hitherto little attended to, in which it acts as a menstruum, conveying certain compounds, insoluble in water, from the soil into the interior of plants to become constituents of their organism. The experiments he details are of two kinds, one set being on single compounds, the other on a mixture of these compounds. The results of the latter seem to prove that water impregnated with carbonic acid is capable of dissolving several substances at the same time, and of keeping them mixed in solution, as carbonate of lime, carbonate of magnesia, phosphate of lime, silica, &c.