240 HISTORY OF COLD AND THE ABSOLUTE ZEEO. 



of microorganisms can be exposed to the temperature of liquid air for 

 a period of six months without any appreciable loss of vitality, although 

 at such a temperature the ordinary chemical processes of the cell 

 must cease. At such a temperature the cells can not be said to be 

 either alive or dead in the ordinary acceptation of these words. It is 

 a new and hitherto unobtained condition of living matter — a third 

 state. A final instance of the application of the above methods may be 

 given. Certain species of bacteria during the course of their vital 

 processes are capable of emitting light. If, however, the cells be 

 broken up at the temperature of liquid air, and the crushed contents 

 brought to the ordinary temperature, the luminosity function is found 

 to have disappeared. This points to the luminosity not being due to 

 the action of a ferment — a " Lucif erase ^ — ])at as being essentially 

 bound up with the vital processes of the cells and dependent for its 

 production on the intact organization of the cell. These attempts to 

 study b}' f rigoritic methods the physiology of the cell have alread}^ 

 yielded valuable and encouraging results, and it is to be hoped that 

 this line of investigation will continue to be vigorously prosecuted at 

 the Jenner Institute. 



And now, to conclude an address which must have sorely taxed your 

 patience, I may remind you that I commenced by referring to the 

 plaint of Eliza])ethan science that cold was not a natural available 

 product. In the course of a long struggle with nature, man, by the 

 application of intelligent and steady industry, has acquired a control 

 over this agency which enables him to produce it at will and with 

 almost any degree of intensity short of a limit delined by the very 

 nature of things. But the success in working what appears at first 

 sight to be a quarrv of research that would soon suffer exhaustion, 

 has onl}^ brought him to the threshhold of new labyrinths, the entan- 

 glements of Avhich frustrate with a seemingly invulnerable complexity 

 the hopes of further progress. In a legitimate sense all genuine scien- 

 tific workers feel that they are "the inheritors of unfulfilled renown." 

 The battlefields of science are the centers of a perpetual warfare, in 

 which there is no hope of final victory, although partial conquest is 

 ever triumphantly encouraging the continuance of the disciplined and 

 streiuious attack on the seemingly impregnable fortress of nature. To 

 serve in the scientific army, to have shown some initiative, and to be 

 rewarded by the consciousness that in the eyes of his comrades he 

 bears the accredited accolade of successful endeavor, is enough to sat- 

 isfy the legitimate ambition of every earnest student of nature. The 

 real warranty that the march of progress in the future will be as glo- 

 rious as in the past lies in the perpetual reenf orcement of the scientific 

 ranks 1)}' recruits animated by such a spirit and proud to obtain such 

 a reward. 



