SCIENCE AND ART 185 



ing animalcules below! There is a cascade of 

 sparks at the prow, a stream of sparks all along 

 the water level, a welter of sparks in the wake, and 

 even where the waves break there is fire. So it 

 goes on for miles and hours the luminescence 

 of the rapid burning away of pinhead-like crea- 

 tures, so numerous that a tubful contains more 

 of them than there are people in London and New 

 York together. This is just one of a thousand 

 ways of feeling the abundance of life. 



Many have enjoyed one of the great pleasures 

 in life, that of crossing an Alpine pass of moderate 

 height, where we get near the lasting snows and 

 are among the bare, inhospitable rocks. There 

 is much to enjoy the air, the near peaks and 

 glaciers, and the distant view. But many must 

 have received another impression of the insur- 

 gent nature of life. Not only are there many 

 beautiful flowers coming up at the thinned edge 

 of the snow on most inhospitable ground, but 

 there is a rich insect life and quite a number of 

 birds, besides hundreds of things unseen. Very 

 conspicuous are the large, white-bellied Alpine 

 swifts, perhaps the most rapid of all birds in 

 their flight, continually swirling about in the cold 

 air, with a note of victory in their cry, the very 

 emblems of insurgent life. Shy marmots whistle 

 among the rocks and strange flocks of white moths 

 float up in the mist, rising like the souls of animals 



