BY WILLIAM J. BYRAM. 21 



which the pyramids are built. And what a wonderful lesson of 

 life energy those pyramids afford. Think of the countless myriads 

 of exquisite living forms whose fossil tests made up the limestone ; 

 think of the untold ages it took to consolidate those shell masses 

 into rock ; think of the strange semi-civilisation of the Egyptians 

 and of the appalling expenditure of human life and energy by 

 which the Pharoahs raised those vast edifices — monuments not of 

 the superior wisdom of the Egyptians, as the ignorant even yet 

 believe, but of an iron despotism, which could only be tho 

 concomitant of semi-barbarism. Nummulities in untold myriads, 

 limestone rock, armies upon armies of human beings under the 

 lash of the task-masters — the pyramids ! 



It is most interesting, too, to know that processes similar to 

 those which formed the limestone of the pyramids and the chalk 

 strata are still proceeding. This is evident from the microscopic 

 examination of the silt which collects in bays and estuaries, and 

 from the so-called ooze which is brought up by soundings from 

 great ocean depths. Let us hope that these minute organisms 

 are not building up a new limestone for the erection of new 

 pyramids by a Pharoah of the future. When I see how strong 

 are the forces of reaction and obscurantism I often fear it. 



From the lowly forms of life, which consist but of single 

 cells, we pass by slow gradations to those higher organisms, 

 which are aggregates of cells, and whose structure becomes more 

 and more complex, more and more differentiated ; and long 

 before we come to man, the highest, we have amply realised the 

 truth of Darwin's remark that each living being must be 

 considered as a microcosm, a small universe which is formed 

 from a collection of organisms, which reproduce themselves, 

 which are extremely small, and which are as numerous as the 

 stars in heaven. So great is this complexity in ourselves that 

 language fails to express it. Consider the number of globules in 

 the blood, the vast multitude of nerve cells in the skin, which 

 you see in the diagram, or the intricate differentiation in the 

 human eye. Each of us is an immense army of living beings — 

 the body cells, in their various differentiations, the sum of whose 

 activities makes up our consciousness, for they are governed by 

 and co-operate with a wonderful group of cells in the brain, the 

 thought-cells. The realisation that we ourselves are cell 

 aggregates leads us to observe with absorbing interest the first 



