FROM INORGANIC MATTER. 



C 2 C1 4 . In the course of his examination of this tetrachlor- 

 ethylene Kolbe observed that by exposure to chlorine in 

 presence of water, it was decomposed into a mixture of 

 hydrochloric and trichlor-acetic acids ; thus : 



Chlor-ethylene. Water. Chlorine. Chlorhydric. Chlor-acetic. 



C 2 C1 4 + 2H 2 + C1 2 = 3 HC1 + C 2 HC1 3 2 . 



" Then by subjecting this trichlor-acetic acid to the 

 action of nascent hydrogen he successively converted it into 

 dichloracetic acid C 2 H 2 C1 2 O 2 , monochlor-acetic acid C 2 H 3 

 C1O 2 , and, finally into normal acetic acid C 2 H 4 O 2 ." 



What can be more conclusive as to the presence of a 

 power in the plant very different from that which enables 

 the chemist to build up his complex compounds ? Highly 

 complex chemical substances are formed very quickly by 

 the plant, and under conditions so different from those 

 necessary for the production of the same or like compounds 

 in the laboratory, as to render it certain that the synthetic 

 processes must be effected in a totally different manner in 

 the two cases. I should have concluded that the chemist 

 would have been led to reflect upon the wonderful and 

 mysterious agency at work in the simple living matter of 

 the plant by which the same compounds are produced in a 

 manner so totally distinct from that in which he js able 

 to produce them. When the chemist has succeeded in 

 forming a little clear transparent stuff like that in the plant, 

 which will take up water and carbonic acid and transform 

 organic compounds, it will be quite time enough for him to 

 call the plant a machine, or a laboratory, and talk of the 

 " fiction of vital force," and artificial processes of oxidation, 

 " more or less similar to the natural processes taking place 



