A Plant that Melts Ice 



35 



Still, so siij^ht is the total quantity o{ heat the poor 

 little plant can evolve with all its efforts, that by 

 the time the stem is an inch or two lon^, the lower 

 part of the tunnel has curiously frozen over a^ain, 

 by the process which Tyndall called " rej^elation," 

 and whose impor- 





tance in glacier 

 action he so fully 

 demonstrated. 

 Inthisstage,then, 

 the melted space 

 is no longer a 

 dome ; it assumes 

 the form of a 

 little balloon or 

 round bubble of 

 air, surrounding 

 the flower -bud. 

 At the same time, 

 the ice beneath, 

 having frozen 

 again, almost 

 touches the stem, 

 so that the bud 

 seems to occupy 

 a small, clear 



area of its own in the midst of the slieet, with 

 ice above, below, and all around it (No. 3). 

 You would say that growth under such circum- 

 stances, in almost icy-cold air, was impossible — but 

 if you examine the ice-sheet at the edge of the 

 neve, you will tind it studded by hundreds of such 



NO. 



3,— BUD, SOMKUIIAI I.AIKR, F.N- 

 CI.OSKI) IN A GI.OllK (tF AIR WITHIN 

 THK ICK-SHEET. 



