transformation 

 'ransition 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



700 



ent, the now. The past of a star is strict- 

 ly and positively the present of the observer. 

 As the aspect of worlds changes from year 

 to year, from one season to another, and 

 almost from one day to the next, we can 

 represent this aspect as escaping into space 

 and advancing in infinitude to reveal itself 

 to the eyes of distant beholders. Each as- 

 pect is followed by another, and so on suc- 

 cessively; and it is as if a series of waves 

 bearing from afar the past of worlds should 

 become present to observers ranged along 

 its passage! What we believe we see now 

 in the stars is already past; and what is 

 now being accomplished we do not yet see. 

 FLAMMARION Popular Astronomy, bk. vi, ch. 

 6, p. 616. (A.) 



3463. TRANSFORMATION OF RAIL- 

 WAY INTO TELEPHONE CIRCUIT- 



Another striking illustration [of electrical 

 conduction without wires] is furnished by 

 Professor Blake, of Brown University, . . . 

 who talked with a friend for some distance 

 along a railway (using the two lines of rails 

 for the telephonic circuit), hearing at the 

 same time the Morse signals passing along 

 the telegraph wires overhead. FAHIE Wire- 

 less Telegraphy, p. 85. (D. M. & Co., 1900.) 



3464. TRANSFORMATION OF UN- 

 SEEN PRODUCTS OF COMBUSTION 



Beauty and Warmth Arise from Destruction. 

 [The floating] smoke, tho so long un- 

 noticed by man, was not overlooked by the 

 Author of Nature. It is a part of his grand 

 and beneficent design in the scheme of or- 

 ganic nature. No sooner do the products 

 of that wood burning on the hearth escape 

 into the free expanse of the outer air, than 

 a new cycle of changes begins. The carbonic 

 dioxid and the aqueous vapor, after roving 

 at liberty for a time, are absorbed by the 

 leaves of some wide-spreading tree, smiling 

 in the sunshine, and in the tiny laboratory 

 of their green cells are worked up by those , 

 wonderful agents, the sun-rays, into new 

 wood, absorbing from the sun a fresh sup- 

 ply of power, which is destined, perhaps, 

 to shed warmth and light around the fire- 

 side of a future generation. COOKE Religion 

 and Chemistry, ch. 3, p. 80. (A., 1897.) 



3465. TRANSFORMATION WROUGHT 

 BY SUNLIGHT Waste Products Utilized 

 A Lily in the Black Hole of Calcutta. The 

 sunbeam . . . does what our wisest 

 chemistry cannot do: it takes the burned- 

 out ashes and makes them anew into green 

 wood; it takes the close and breathed-out 

 air and makes it sweet and fit to breathe 

 by means of the plant, whose food is the 

 same as our poison. With the aid of sun- 

 light a lily would thrive on the deadly at- 

 mosphere of the " black hole of Calcutta " ; 

 for this bane to us, we repeat, is vital air 

 to the plant, which breathes it in through 

 all its pores, bringing it into contact with 

 the chlorophyl, its green blood, which is to 

 it what the red blood is to us ; doing almost 



everything, however, by means of the sun- 

 ray, for if this be lacking, the oxygen is no 

 longer set free or the carbon retained, and 

 the plant dies. This too brief statement 

 must answer instead of a fuller description 

 of how the sun's energy builds up the vege- 

 table world. LANGLEY New Astronomy, ch. 

 3, p. 73. (H. M. &Co., 1896.) 



3466. TRANSFORMATION WROUGHT! 

 BY WORMS- The "Wilderness Turned into 

 a Fruitful Field " Beneficent Work of Un- 

 considered or Despised Organisms. A field 

 . . . , which was last plowed in 1841, was 

 then harrowed and left to become pasture- 

 land. For several years it was clothed with 

 an extremely scant vegetation, and was so 

 thickly covered with small and large flints 

 (some of them half as large as a child's 

 head) that the field was always called by 

 my sons " the stony field." When they ran 

 down the slope the stones clattered together. 

 I remember doubting whether I should live 

 to see these larger flints covered with veg- 

 etable mold and turf. But the smaller 

 stones disappeared before many years had 

 elapsed, as did every one of the larger ones 

 after a time; so that after thirty years 

 (1871) a horse could gallop over the com- 

 pact turf from one end of the field to the 

 other, and not strike a single stone with 

 his shoes. To any one who remembered the 

 appearance of the field in 1842, the trans- 

 formation was wonderful. This was certain- 

 ly the work of the worms, for tho castings 

 were not frequent for several years, yet 

 some were thrown up month after month, 

 and these gradually increased in numbers 

 as the pasture improved. In the year 1871 

 a trench was dug on the above slope, and 

 the blades of grass were cut off close to the 

 roots, so that the thickness of the turf and 

 of the vegetable mold could be measured ac- 

 curately. The turf was rather less than 

 half an inch, and the mold, which did not 

 contain any stones, 2% inches in thickness. 

 Beneath this lay coarse, clayey earth full 

 of flints, like that in any of the neighboring 

 plowed fields. This coarse earth easily fell 

 apart from the overlying mold when a spit 

 was lifted up. The average rate of accumu- 

 lation of the mold during the whole thirty 

 years was only .083 inch per year (i. e., 

 nearly one inch in twelve years) ; but the 

 rate must have been much slower at first, 

 and afterwards considerably quicker. DAR- 

 WIN Formation of Vegetable Mould, ch. 3, p. 

 41. (Hum., 1887.) 



3467. TRANSITION FROM BIRDS 

 TO REPTILES Fossil Connecting-links Are 

 Found. When compared with other ;ini- 

 mals, birds are found to occupy second place 

 in the scale of life. They stand between 

 mammals and reptiles, and are more closely 

 related to the latter than to the former. 

 In fact, certain extinct birds so clearly con- 

 nect living birds with reptiles that these 

 two classes are sometimes placed in one 



