699 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Traditions 

 Transformation 



thority grow cold to it it was the great 

 exception. DRUMMOND Natural Law in the 

 Spiritual World, pref., p. 9. (H. Al.) 



3459. TRANSFORMATION BY 

 CHANGED CONDITIONS Worker Changed 

 to Queen Potentiality To Be Accounted for. 

 The most remarkable example with which 

 I am acquainted, of the effect of physical 

 conditions in modifying the developmental 

 process, is that which is seen in the economy 

 of the hive-bee. It is well known that when- 

 ever, from any cause, a community wants 

 a queen, a worker grub at an early stage is 

 selected ; a " royal cell " is constructed round 

 it, several ordinary cells being demolished 

 for the purpose, and their contained grubs 

 killed; the selected grub is fed with "royal 

 jelly " instead of with " bee-bread "; and (it 

 seems probable) a higher temperature is 

 maintained by the incessant activity of the 

 bees which cluster about the royal nursery. 

 In due time a perfect " queen " comes forth, 

 differing from the " worker " not merely in 

 the completeness of its reproductive appa- 

 ratus, but in the conformation of its jaws 

 and antennae, the absence of " pollen-bas- 

 kets " on the thighs, and yet more remark- 

 ably in its instincts. Now it is obviously 

 no explanation of this extraordinary trans- 

 formation to say that every worker grub 

 is a " potential " queen, because the attribu- 

 ting this " potentiality " to it is only 

 another way of expressing the fact that it 

 can be so transformed. The existence of the 

 " potentiality," and of the wonderful instinct 

 that leads the worker bees to act upon it, 

 are not less evidences of " design," because 

 physical agencies are needed to call them 

 into exercise. CARPENTER Nature and Man, 

 lect. 15, p. 440. (A., 1889.) 



3460. TRANSFORMATION, GRAD- 

 UAL, FROM ANCIENT TO MODERN 

 TYPE Crocodile the Heir of a Long Succes- 

 sion. The crocodiles are animals which, as 

 a group, have a very vast antiquity. They 

 abounded ages before the chalk was deposit- 

 ed; they throng the rivers in warm climates 

 at the present day. There is a difference 

 in the form of the joints of the backbone, 

 and in some minor particulars, between the 

 crocodiles of the present epoch and those 

 which lived before the chalk. . . . But 

 each epoch has had its peculiar crocodiles, 

 tho all, since the chalk, have belonged to 

 the modern type, and differ simply in their 

 proportions, and in such structural par- 

 ticulars as are discernible only to trained 

 eyes. How is the existence of this long 

 succession of different species of crocodiles 

 to be accounted for? Only two suppositions 

 seem to be open to us either each species 

 of crocodile has been specially created, or 

 it has arisen out of some preexisting form 

 by the operation of natural causes. Choose 

 your hypothesis; I have chosen mine. I 

 can find no warranty for believing in the 

 distinct creation of a score of successive 

 species of crocodiles in the course of count- 



less ages of time. Science gives no counte- 

 nance to such a wild fancy; nor can even 

 the perverse ingenuity of a commentator 

 pretend to discover this sense, in the simple 

 words in which the writer of Genesis records 

 the proceedings of the fifth and sixth days 

 of the creation. On the other hand, I see 

 no good reason for doubting the necessary 

 alternative, that all ~th~e"se~ varied species 

 have been evolved from preexisting croco- 

 dilian forms, by the operation of causes as 

 completely a part of the common order of 

 Nature as those which have effected the 

 changes of the inorganic world. HUXLEY 

 Lay Sermons, serm. 9, p. 200. (G. P. P., 

 1899.) 



346 1 . TRANSFORMATION OF ENG- 

 LAND THROUGH THE DISCOVERY OF 

 COAL Possible Effect of Its Exhaustion. 

 Three hundred years ago the sun, looking 

 down on the England of our forefathers, 

 saw a fair land of green woods and quiet 

 waters, a land unvexed with noisier ma- 

 chinery than the spinning-wheel or the 

 needles of the " free maids that weave their 

 threads with bones." Because of the coal 

 which has been dug from its soil he sees it 

 now soot-blackened, furrowed with railway- 

 cuttings, covered with noisy manufactories, 

 filled with grimy operatives, while the is- 

 land shakes with the throb of coal-driven en- 

 gines, and its once quiet waters are churned 

 by the wheels of steamships. Many gener- 

 ations of the lives of men have passed to 

 make the England of Elizabeth into the 

 England of Victoria; but what a moment 

 this time is, compared with the vast lapse 

 of ages during which the coal was being 

 stored! What a moment in the life of the 

 " all-beholding sun," who in a few hundred 

 years his gift exhausted and the last fur- 

 nace fire out may send his beams through 

 rents in the ivy-grown walls of deserted 

 factories, upon silent engines brown with 

 rust, while the mill-hand has gone to other 

 lands, the rivers are clean again, the har- 

 bors show only white sails, and England's 

 " black country " is green once more ! To 

 America, too, such a time may come, tho at 

 a greatly longer distance. LANGLEY New 

 Astronomy, ch. 4, p. 115. (H. M. & Co., 

 1896.) 



3462. TRANSFORMATION OF PAST 

 INTO PRESENT The Past of the Stars la 

 the Terrestrial Present. We have seen that 

 light is not transmitted instantaneously from 

 one point to another, but gradually, like ev- 

 erything movable; that it flies at the rate 

 of 186,000 miles a second, or 11 millions of 

 miles in one minute ; that it takes more than 

 eight minutes to pass over the distance which 

 separates us from the sun, four hours to 

 come from Neptune, and four years and four 

 months to come from the nearest star, etc. 



There is here, then, a surprising trans- 

 formation of the past into the present. For 

 the star observed, it is the past already 

 vanished. For the observer, it is the pres- 



