ON NEW PLUMS AND PRUNES 



In this view, then, the germ cell may well be an 

 organism as complex and of as definite a system 

 of architecture as the full grown tree into which 

 it will ultimately develop. 



The leaves of a tree even the leaves of a forest 

 are a meagre company compared with the census 

 of the atoms within the nucleus of a single germ 

 cell. 



AN AMAZING MICROCOSM 



Nor need we limit our view to the germ cell 

 that produces a single plant. Let us consider for a 

 moment the bud from which the branch grew on 

 which are produced, according to our illustration, 

 plums, the seeds of which may give rise to some 

 hundreds of different "varieties" of fruit. 



Do the analyses of miscroscopist and physicist 

 make comprehensible the fact that the original 

 bud of the plum tree can contain potentialities of 

 so many different complex structures? 



Another glance at the figures of the physicist 

 will supply an answer that would have been be- 

 wildering were it not for what we have just seen 

 as to the complexity of the germ plasm. It appears 

 that, according to the estimates of Professor Ruth- 

 erford (based on accurate count of the atoms 

 given out as so-called alpha particles in the radia- 

 tion of radium) the mass of an atom is so incon- 

 ceivably small that the number of atoms making 



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