YOUNGER YEARS OF A PLANT. 179 



have joints that measure over eighteen feet from knot to 

 knot, and serve the Indians of that country as blowpipes, 

 with which they kill even large animals. And yet the 

 delicate graceful tissue of all these grasses resists, by their 

 wondrous structure, the storm that would break columns 

 of granite, of the same height and thickness ! Nature 

 knows full well that a slender hollow tube, with well 

 strengthened walls, the most solid parts being placed out- 

 side, is the best form in which to give firmness and 

 solidity to such structures. Hence it is that their deli- 

 cate walls are hardened by a copious deposition of silica, 

 so that e. g. a kind of rattan has solid lumps of it in 

 joints and hollows, and will readily strike fire with steel ; 

 and the so-called Dutch rush, a horsetail moss, is largely 

 imported from Holland for its usefulness in polishing fur- 

 niture and pewter utensils. The grass which grows on 

 less than half an acre of land is said to contain flint 

 enough to produce, when mixed with sand, and by the 

 aid of the blowpipe, a glass-bead of considerable size; 

 and after a number of hay-stacks, set up by the river 

 side, had once been struck by lightning and burned, large 

 lumps of glass were found in their place. Wondrous in- 

 deed are the works of the Almighty, and well can we 

 understand the deep pathos with which Galileo, when 

 questioned as to his belief in a Supreme Being, pointed 

 at a straw on the floor of his dungeon and said: "From 

 the structure of that little tube alone would I infer with 

 certainty the existence of a wise Creator!" 



Other stems, like our bulbs, whose scales are the real 

 leaves of the plants, grow under ground, where they alone, 



