ON NEW PLUMS AND PRUNES 



they have taken a census of the atom, are such as 

 to give us full assurance that even so small a struc- 

 ture as the minutest chromosome within the 

 nucleus of a plant cell contains molecules and 

 atoms in such numbers as to make possible an 

 infinite complexity of arrangements and therefore 

 an infinite diversity of resulting qualities. 



Thus we are told that the smallest particle of 

 matter visible under the magnifying influence of 

 the most powerful microscope is of such dimen- 

 sions that 50,000 of such particles placed in line 

 would be required to cross the space of one centi- 

 meter or about two-fifths of an inch. If we calcu- 

 late the cube of this number we find that 125 

 thousand billion such particles could be crowded 

 into the space of a cubic centimeter. But it further 

 appears that, according to a definite measurement 

 made by Professor Rutherford, more than 20 

 billion times that number of helium atoms would 

 exist in the form of gas in the same space. 



And the commentator I am quoting adds : "Of 

 course the molecules of gas are widely separated. 

 So it follows that the smallest particle of solid 

 matter visible through the most powerful micro- 

 scope contains many times 20 billion atoms." 



"Many times 20 billion atoms" in the smallest 

 particle of matter that the microscope reveals! 

 Vastly more than that number of atoms, then, in 



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