LUTHER BURBANK 



Becquerel, that the size of the individual electrons 

 that make up the atom is such that they may be 

 thought of, not as piled solidly together within the 

 structure of the atom, but rather as infinitely 

 separated by comparison, like a swarm of gnats 

 flying about in the dome of a cathedral. 



It is a little difficult for anyone not accustomed 

 to this particular use of the imagination to follow 

 the conceptions of the physicist. But we may 

 accept his findings as authoritative, for they are 

 the result not of one man's work alone but of tests 

 that have been applied by many workers. 



Making the application to our plum-bud, then, 

 it appears that its bulk is such as to give us assur- 

 ance that it contains (although it actually is no 

 larger than the smallest pea) a number of atoms 

 so great that if the atoms were conceived to be all 

 gathered into 8,000 different groups (each group 

 representing a different variety of future plum), 

 there is material enough to supply at least eight 

 million billion atoms in each group ! And each of 

 these atoms is itself a complex structure made up 

 of several thousand electric corpuscles. 



Now we know that each particle of protoplasm, 

 the physical basis of all life, is composed of atoms 

 of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen in com- 

 plex combinations. A single molecule of proto- 

 plasm may contain a thousand or more atoms. 



[242] 



