'HE TKIUMFH OF LIFE 



it had ever been given the victory. Each new 

 task had only hardened it and increased its 

 strength. From the deep sea to the high moun- 

 tain tip it had ruled tliis planet for many mil- 

 lions of years. It had conquered the earth, now 

 it must battle with Cosmos. The ice dragon of 

 the chilling world space crept upon its heart. 

 All! look once at the moon there above. It is 

 not for nothing that it shines so shudderingly 

 silver clear above the ice field. It has already 

 been conquered by this cold, it lies already iced 

 and devastated. What then will happen to that 

 dehcate life, that foam like skin that itself 

 quivers Hke a green moon dust over the earth, 

 when it is set against the world space in which 

 all the stars dance like dust particles in the sun 

 light, and when that space shall throw its icy 

 breath from all sides upon this globe and cover 

 it and its life, with a hard crystal frost? 



To be sure life possesses an ancient power to 

 protect itself against the cold. It has a sort of 

 marmot faculty of sleeping so long as it is cold. 

 This gift it had often used. The bacillus, the 

 lowest of unicellular creatures, possesses this 

 power in the highest degree. While in its sleep- 

 ing spore condition it can undergo at least the 

 full cold of outer space — two hundred degrees. 

 Slowly the cold reaches from above. Life un- 

 doubtedly develops only to a high degree on a 

 warm star. It does not need to cultivate this 

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