NATURE S ECONOMY IN FORMS. I 75 



supplies nourishment to the upper trunk and branches. 

 With a tree three feet in circumference and a shell of 

 sound wood only two inches thick, no other form or ar- 

 rangement of support would serve to hold the tree erect. 

 How long would a slab two inches thick and three feet 

 wide support a tree seventy-five feet high in a strong wind? 

 Yet these hollow trees live and grow and withstand the 

 elements, supported wholly by economy of form. 



When nature starts on a rampage and wants to exert its 

 power to the utmost in a limited time and space, the wind 

 is started in a circle and the cyclone results. There is no 

 halt for turning square corners and nothing left to be fin- 

 ished by that which is to follow. 



But when w^e come to the work of animated beings as 

 we see them on the earth, the case is different. The most 

 striking illustration is found in the cells of the bee; a 

 square cell would not fit the future occupant, and circles 

 would leave unoccupied spaces between, while cells with 

 six sides are joined so as to occupy all the space with onlj' 

 the thickness of the wall between. Man would pack ap- 

 ples in square boxes were it not for the fact that the space 

 between the barrels is needed for ventilation. 



This is a point where animated beings have to depart 

 from the methods and teachings of nature, and sacrifice 

 form to econoni}' of space on account of the restrictions 

 placed on the latter by competition or by the necessity of 

 protecting all of it that is used. 



Man has taken hints from nature's teachings in the con- 

 struction of tall chimneys and in making iron pipes, find- 

 ing that both will possess more strength and inclose more 

 space with the same exposed surface than in any other 

 form. 



"Ah! my friends, nature is a big-print catechism!" — Pere Je- 

 rome, iti Cable's " Madame Delphine.'' 



