THE .SLUGGISH DIATOM. 1 33 



Now there are 63,360 inches in a mile. The magnified diatom 

 would then travel 0.81 mile per-hour. 



This is not very rapid progress for a man. But let us 

 remember that the diatom has been allotted an intolerable 

 deal of heavy silica to a very small pennyworth of proto- 

 plasm. To make the comparison just, the man should be 

 reduced to a layer of living slime, about three inches thick, 

 lining the walls of a burial casket of rock crystal. Is it pro- 

 bable that the layer of slime, if so be it had power of thought, 

 would deem itself passive during that hour spent in going 

 nearly a mile ? 



It is to be considered, however, that neither man nor 

 diatom is a line without breadth or thickness. The mere 

 comparison for length does not give any adequate notion of 

 relative sizes. Both man and diatom occupy space in three 

 dimensions. If, in our endeavor to appraise the energy exhi- 

 bited by the diatom, it were legitimate to postulate that the 

 man progress as many times faster as he is larger in cubic 

 content, we should proceed as follows : — 



The man may be assumed to weigh 170 pounds. The 

 specific gravity of the human body may be taken as that of 

 water, which will be nearly enough for our purpose. Now 170 

 pounds of water would occupy 4620 cubic inches at standard 

 temperature. A cubic inch is equivalent to 



15,625,000,000,000 /U... . 



The volume of the man would then be 4620 times this number, or 



72,187,500,000,000,000 fX., . 



The diatom, which was 70 ju. long, may be taken as 14 /a 



wide and 10 /a deep. We have then for the volume of the 



diatom 



70 ' 14 ' 10 9800 /A., . 



The ratio of volume, as between man and diatom, would be 



72,187,500,000,000,000 



7,366,071,428,571, 



9800 



