LUTHER BURBANK 



plant, and to picture in imagination its actual 

 mechanism. 



In our age the telescope, fortified by the weirdly 

 penetrative spectroscope and aided by the photo- 

 graphic plate, has enabled the astronomer to reach 

 out into unthinkable realms and to record not 

 merely the direction and speed of light but even 

 the chemical composition of stars so distant that 

 their light, traveling 186,000 miles per second, re- 

 quires scores of years to reach the earth. 



With the aid of the same instrument, the 

 universe is proved to be peopled with dark stars, 

 definitely revealed to us even though forever 

 invisible; the structure of the universe as a whole 

 is coming to be understood, and the course and 

 direction and speed of groups and streams of stars 

 by millions have been tested and charted. 



In such an age it is not strange if the worker 

 who turns his eyes in the opposite direction, and 

 attempts to penetrate the mysteries of the micro- 

 cosm of the plant or animal cell should have found 

 means to pass beyond the range of vision of the 

 microscope and reveal something of the intimate 

 nature of the events that are taking place in the 

 world of molecule and atom and electric particle. 

 AID FROM THE MICROSCOPE 



In point of fact the invasion of the world of 

 the infinitely little by the modern biologist has 



