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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



that immeasurably transcends all others, should alone undergo abso- 

 lute extinction. It needs must be, therefore, that mind or mental force 

 shall continue to exist after dissolution of the organism with which 

 its manifestations are associated, by passing into a new state, or new 

 conditions of activity, of which science takes no cognizance. Thus 

 considered, mind, in its ultimate analysis, becomes a purely spiritual 

 entity which can never be dissolved and commingled with the hetero- 

 geneous forces of the material world. 







T 



ABOUT THE MOLDS. 



1HE molds represent an immense variety of minute plants that 

 grow upon a great number of objects, and under different circum- 

 stances. The spores from which they are developed are borne in the 

 air, imperceptibly to us because of their extreme littleness. The mi- 

 croscopic examination of them reveals some very curious dispositions 

 and forms, always worthy of admiration. We often, in the spring, 

 perceive blades of grass covered with a chalk-like dust, so white that 

 one is at first sight inclined to take it to be hoar-frost. On examining 

 it with a microscope of small power, we shall perceive a real forest of 



minute plants. Little bundles of very delicate filaments, clear and 

 crystalline, composed of roundish cells connected together, rise from a 

 net-work of other branching filaments, which are collectively called the 

 mycelium (Fig. 1). These curious organisms are the first phases of a 

 parasitic plant belonging to the great order of the cryptogams, or a 



