Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/567

W H E W H E 531 Whately was a man loved and reverenced by a narrow circle, hated, or at least distrusted, by a much larger number. This was largely owing to his own intellectual characteristics ; for, with a remarkably fair and lucid mind, his sympathies were narrow, and by his blunt outspokenness on points of difference he alienated many. With no mystical fibre in his own constitution, the Trac- tarian movement was incomprehensible to him, and was the object of his bitter dislike and contempt. The doctrines of the Low Church party seemed to him to be almost equally tinged with superstition. In short, it is admitted even by his admirers that he had a tendency to depreciate those minds which could not rest content with his own "common-sense " view of Christianity. See ing so clearly himself, he could not believe that there might be things which he could not see. Though a great logician, there was nothing philosophical or speculative about his mind, and he took a practical, almost business-like view of Christianity, which seemed to High Churchmen and Evangelicals alike little better than Nationalism. In this they did Whately less than justice, for his belief in Christianity as understood by himself was thoroughly genuine, and his religion was to him a real thing. But he may be said to have continued into our own times the typical Chris tianity of the 18th century the Christianity of the theologians who went out to fight the Rationalists with their own weapons. It is to Whately essentially a belief in certain matters of fact, to be accepted or rejected after an examination of "evidences." Hence his endeavour always is to convince the logical faculty, and his Christianity inevitably appears as a thing of the intellect rather than of the heart. Whately himself was well aware that he was out of harmony with the general tendency of his time, and even Broad Church theology has in general proceeded since upon other lines than his. Nevertheless, though in no sense a fruitful or suggestive mind, his clear and massive intellect inspired general respect, and his books well repay reading by the shrewdness of their observa tion, the acuteness of the reasoning, the faculty of telling illustra tion, and the uniform excellence of style. Whately s qualities are exhibited at their best in his Logic, which is, as it were, the quintessence of the views which he afterwards applied to different subjects. He has written nothing better than the luminous Ap pendix to this work on "Ambiguous Terms." (A. SE. ) WHEAT (Triticum the most important and the most generally diffused of cereal grasses, is an annual plant, with hollow, erect, knotted stems, and produces, in addi tion to the direct develop ments from the seedling plant, secondary roots and secondary shoots (tillers) from the base. Its leaves have each a long sheath encircling the stem, and at the junction of the blade or "flag" with the sheath a small whitish outgrowth or " ligula." The inflorescence or ear consists of a central stalk bent zigzag, now to the one side, now to the other, thus forming a series of notches (see fig. 1), and bearing a number of flat tened spikelets, one of which grows out of each notch and has its inner or upper face pressed up against it. At the base of each spikelet are two empty boat-shaped glumes or " chaff -scales, " one to the right, the other to the left, and then a series of flowers, 2 to 8 in number, Fl - Vl p , i elct m * A. Spikelet magni closely crowded together ; the uppermost are abortive or sterile, indeed, in some varieties only one or two of the flowers are fertile. Each flower consists of an outer or lower glume, called the flower ing glume, of the same shape as the empty glume and ter minating in a long, or it may be in a short, awn or " beard." Spikelet. magnified. B Glumes, from side. C, Glumes, from back. D. Flowering glume or lower palea E. Falea. F. Lodicles at base oi j, the ovary, surmounted by styles. G and H, Seed from front and back re spectively. I Rachis, or central stalk of ear, spikelets removed. On the other side of the flower and at a slightly higher ievel is the "palea," of thinner texture than the other glumes, with infolded margins and with two ribs or veins. These several glumes are closely applied one to the other so as to conceal and protect the ovary, and they only separate to allow of the passage of the empty anthers after fertilization. Within the pale are two minute, ovate, pointed, white membranous scales called "lodicles." These contain three stamens with thread-like filaments and oblong, two-lobed anthers. The stamens are placed round the base of the ovary, which is a rounded or oblong body, much smaller than the glumes, covered with down, and sur mounted by two short styles, extending into feathery brush-like stigmas. The ripe fruit or grain, sometimes called the "berry," the matured state of the ovary and its contents, is oblong or ovoid, with a longitudinal furrow on one side. The ovary adheres firmly to the seed in the interior, so that on examining a longitudinal section of the grain by the microscope the outer layer is seen to consist of epidermal cells, of which the uppermost are prolonged into short hairs to cover the apex of the grain. Two or three layers of cells inside the epidermis constitute the tissue of the ovary, and overlie somewhat similar layers which form the coats of the seed. Within these last is a layer of square cells larger and more regular in form than those on each side ; these contain the gluten or nitrogenous matter upon which so much of the nutritive value of the seed depends. This thin layer of gluten cells contains the albumen or perisperm, which constitutes the great mass of the seed, being composed of numerous cells of irregular form and size filled with starch grains. These layers of cells become more or less dry and inseparable one from another, forming the substance known as "bran." At the lower end of the albumen, and placed obliquely, is the minute embryo -plant, which derives its nourishment in the first instance from the albumen ; this is destined to form the future plant. Such in brief is the general structure of the wheat plant Origin as we now know it. Of its principal variations mention aml . will be made below. What was its origin is not known ; and opinion has differed as to whether more than one species is involved or whether all the varieties now known may not have been ori ginally derived from one. The prevalent opinion among botanists is that the wheat plant is nowhere found in a wild condition. Recently, however, M. Frederic Houssay is alleged to have discovered the plant wild in the moun tains to the east of Kurdistan ; but the statement requires confirmation. Some of the species of the genus jEyilops (now referred to Triticum by Bentham and Hooker and by Haeckel) may pos- Fm 2 _ sibly have been the with seed sources of our cultivated forms, as they cross freely with wheats. Haeckel, the latest monographer of the genus, considers that there are three species. (1) Triticum mono- species. Boarrtlfiss ///. spelt wheat. II. Polish wheat,

All much reduced.