I 



i 



THE TRIUMPH OF LIFE 



the whole water column to the very bottom shines 

 in magical blue like the water of the grotto at 

 Capri. The hour hand stands at the middle of 

 the fifth day. There is no more night on the 

 earth. In the heavens it is as though a ncAV 

 self-illuminating star had appeared. The whole 

 ocean to its deepest abyss is a blue glow. All 

 of its four million cubic miles are penetrated 

 with bacteria. The number of individuals re- 

 quires thirty-six places for its enumeration. 



This vision is a tale. No single bacillus has 

 ever reached this limit: but something else has 

 come at least near to it, that is Life as a whole. 

 Falling once as a golden egg into the flood it 

 has searched out a way into approximately all 

 the breadth and depth of the ocean. The sur- 

 face glitters in silvery phosphorescent light: it 

 is above. In the depths glow the colored lan- 

 terns of the deep sea fish : it is below. An enor- 

 mous conflict appears between these two poles 

 of the water column of five and a half miles. 

 The struggle of reproduction with space. 



At first one layer of water swelled with life 

 until the space became too narrow through this 

 incessant multiplying power. What now.? 

 Should the whole mass go to destruction, stop 

 its production through lack of space and nour- 

 ishment? Before that came, another experi- 

 ment was tried. A wandering out into a second 

 layer. The conditions here were diff^erent, the 

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