TIIK CONFLICT OF LANGUAGKS. 139 



destruclion of the American, African, Australian and Oceanic 

 tongues. Geographically they are being replaced by European 

 tongues. If this process continue to completion, there will 

 still be the Asiatic languages to contend against the Euro- 

 pean, and the European amongst themselves. In these latter 

 conflicts, extermination and slavery seem impossible. If they 

 are, then only intermarriage can bring about a universal 

 lan"Ua"e. 



PLANT PHYSIOLOGY. 



Chlorophyll is that substance by the aid of which plants 

 are enabled to transform inorganic mineral matter into living 

 matter. By its aid they are enabled to use the energy of the 

 sun's light to carry through this endothermic reaction. Little 

 is known of the constitution of chloroph^'ll further than that 

 it consists of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and ash. 

 Iron is believed to be an essential constituent, Imt this point 

 is disputed. 



When extracted from the plant leaf by alcohol or other 

 solvent, the chlorophyll solution, appears as a dark green 

 liquid, showing a deep red flourescence if concentrated. Spec- 

 troscopically it shows strong absorption in the blue end of the 

 spectrum. Strange to say, however, all quantitative measure- 

 ments on plant assimilation indicate that plants exposed to 

 light from the other end of the spectrum show the most activity. 



The solution of chlorophyll when exposed to strong light 

 suffers some kind of decomposition and in a few hours loses 

 its green color. 



The pigment of chlorophyll seems to consist of two sub- 

 stances, one yellow and the other green. By adding benzol to 

 an alcoholic solution of chlorophyll, mixing well, and allow- 

 ing the solution to stand, it will be found after some time that 

 the liquid has separated into two layers. The lower layer is a 

 yellowish solution of the yellow pigment in the 1)enzol, and 

 the upper layer is a green solution of the green pigment in 



