CHAPTER II 



PIONEER LABORERS 



No one needs to be told that all living things require 

 food of one sort or another to keep them alive; but some 

 people have fancied, even within the last hundred years, 

 that vegetables had such delicate appetites as to need 

 nothing but air and pure water for their sustenance. As 

 a matter of fact, however, no vegetables live upon a diet 

 of mere air and water. 



But then, what of the seaweeds which float about in 

 the ocean? Are there not vast meadows of weed far 

 away from soil or even rocks of any kind.? Does not the 

 ocean, moreover, swarm everywhere, from the polar 

 regions to the equator, with microscopic vegetables? And 

 is it not a fact that no seaweeds, not even those which 

 cling to the rocks, receive any of their nourishment 

 through their roots, and therefore must live upon water? 

 Quite true that they do not feed by means of their 

 roots — indeed, no seaweeds possess true roots; and it is 

 quite true, also, that they live upon what they obtain from 

 the water, but surely the taste of it is sufficient to prove 

 that it is not mere water. 



There is no such thing as pure, absolutely pure, water 

 in nature; and sea-water, which is much heavier than 

 fresh water, contains thirty-five parts of solid matter in 

 every thousand. The rivers are constantly pouring into 

 it small quantities of every sort of mineral substance that 



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