745 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Walking 

 Waste 



so that, as Rolander has remarked of certain 

 species, some appear to be created soleiy for 

 the destruction of others. BLUMENBACH 

 Manual of the Elements of Natural Hisiory, 

 p. 217. 



3690. WASPS PROVIDING FOR 

 THEIR OFFSPRING Prevision among In- 

 sects. The females of certain species of this 

 genus (Sphecc) dig a hole in sandy ground, 

 drag a large spider, or the caterpillar of a 

 Phalcena, into it, lame it by biting off its 

 legs, and then lay an egg in each hole, so 

 that the larva may suck the spinning-fluid 

 from the animal the mother has buried, and 

 by this means prepare for itself a habitation 

 in which to pass through its metamorphosis. 

 BLUMENBACH Manual of the Elements of 

 Natural History, p. 217. 



3691. WASTE OF EARTH'S SUR- 

 FACE REPAIRED Perpetual Reconstruc- 

 tion A Necessity Early Discerned Geology 

 in the Eighteenth Century. Generelli [an 

 Italian monk and philosopher, 1749] then 

 describes the continual waste of mountains 

 and continents by the action of rivers and 

 torrents, and concludes with these eloquent 

 and original observations : " Is it possible 

 that this waste should have continued for 

 six thousand and perhaps a greater num- 

 ber of years, and that the mountains should 

 remain so great, unless their ruins have been 

 repaired? Is it credible that the Author of 

 Nature should have founded the world upon 

 such laws as that the dry land should for- 

 ever be growing smaller, and at last become 

 wholly submerged beneath the waters? Is 

 it credible that, amid so many created 

 things, the mountains alone should daily di- 

 minish in number and bulk, without there 

 being any repair of their losses ? This would 

 be contrary to that order of Providence 

 which is seen to reign in all other things 

 in the universe. Wherefore I deem it just 

 to conclude that the same cause which, in 

 the beginning of time, raised mountains 

 from the abyss, has down to the present 

 day continued to produce others, in order to 

 restore from time to time the losses of all 

 such as sink down in different places, or 

 are rent asunder, or in other ways suffer dis- 

 integration. If this be admitted, we can 

 easily understand why there should now 

 be found upon many mountains so great a 

 number of crustaceans and other marine ani- 

 mals." LYELL Principles of Geology, bk. i, 

 ch. 3, p. 37. (A., 1854.) 



3692. WASTE OF THE EARTH'S 

 CAPITAL Sewage and Garbage Thrown into 

 the Sea Stock of Fixed Nitrogen Finite. 

 Sir William Crookes has recently pointed 

 out the vast importance of using all the 

 available nitrogen in the service of wheat 

 production. The distillation of coal in the 

 process of gas -making yields a certain 

 amount of its nitrogen in the form of sul- 

 fate of ammonia, and this, like other nitrog- 

 enous manures, might be used to give back 

 to the soil some of the nitrogen drained from 



it. But such manuring cannot keep pace, 

 according to Sir W. Crookes, with the pres- 

 ent loss of % fixed nitrogen from the soil. We 

 have already referred to several ways in 

 which " loss " of nitrogen occurs. To these 

 may well be added the enormous loss occur- 

 ring in the waste of sewage when it is passed 

 into the sea. . . . Let us remember that 

 the plant creates nothing-in this direction; 

 there is nothing in wheat which is not ab- 

 sorbed from the soil, and unless the abstract- 

 ed nitrogen is returned to the soil its fer- 

 tility must be ultimately exhausted. When 

 we apply to the' land sodium nitrate, sulfate 

 of ammonia, guano, and similar manurial 

 substances, we are drawing on the earth's 

 capital, and our drafts will not be perpetual- 

 ly responded to. NEWMAN Bacteria ch 5 

 p. 160. (G. P. P., 1899.) 



3693. WASTE, SEEMING, IN NA- 

 TURE But One Seed among Thousands Grows 

 Progeny of One Orchid Would Cover the 

 Earth. I was curious to estimate the num- 

 ber of seeds produced by some few orchids, 

 so I took a ripe capsule of Cephalanthera 

 grandiflora, and arranged the seeds on a 

 long ruled line as equably as I could in a 

 narrow hillock; and then counted the seeds 

 in an accurately measured length of one- 

 tenth of an inch. In this way the contents 

 of the capsule were estimated at 6,020 seeds, 

 and very few of these were bad; the four 

 capsules borne by the same plant would have 

 therefore contained 24,080 seeds. Estima- 

 ting in the same manner the smaller seeds 

 of Orchis maculata, I found the number 

 nearly the same, viz., 6,200; and, as I have 

 often seen above thirty capsules on the same 

 plant, the total amount would be 186,300. 

 As this orchid is perennial, and cannot in 

 most places be increasing in number, one 

 seed alone of this large number yields a ma- 

 ture plant once in every few years.* 



To give an idea what the above figures 

 really mean, I will briefly show the possible 

 rate of increase of 0. maculata: an acre of 

 land would hold 174,240 plants, each having 

 a space of six inches square, and this would 

 be just sufficient for their growth; so that, 

 making the fair allowance of 400 bad seeds 

 in each capsule, an acre would be thickly 

 clothed by the progeny of a single plant. 

 At the same rate of increase the grandchil- 

 dren would cover a space slightly exceeding 

 the island of Anglesea ; and the great grand- 

 children of a single plant would nearly (in 

 the ratio of 47 to 50) clothe with one uni- 

 form green carpet the entire surface of the 

 land throughout the globe. But the num- 

 ber of seeds produced by one of our common 

 British orchids is as nothing compared to 

 that of some of the exotic kinds. DARWIN 

 Fertilisation of Orchids, ch. 9, p. 277. (A., 

 1898.) 



* " And finding that of fifty seeds 

 She often brings but one to bear." 



TENNYSON In Memoriam, st. Iv, 11. 11-12. 

 The poet's estimate ia cautious and conservative, beside 

 the studious computation of the man of science. 



