CHAPTER XV 

 SUSPENDED ANIMATION 



OUR leading newspapers, with rare exceptions, never 

 report the discoveries announced at our scientific 

 societies. But they often seek to astonish their 

 readers with silly stories of monsters said to have been 

 seen in tropical forests, ghostly " manifestations " and 

 such rubbish transmitted to them at a high price by 

 crafty " newsmongers," and do much harm to themselves 

 and to the public thereby. On the other hand, foreign 

 newspapers do occasionally report the proceedings of 

 their local Academies — and then " our own correspondent " 

 telegraphs to London with a flourish, a confused report 

 of what he has read and ignorantly imagines to be "a 

 startling discovery" because he knows nothing whatever 

 of the subject. Thus shortly before the recent war — 

 the confirmation by a French experimenter of the fact, 

 long since demonstrated, that the seeds of plants can 

 survive exposure to very low temperature, was announced 

 with ridiculous emphasis by one of these " fat boys " of 

 journalism /<7«r ^pater le bourgeois. 



A temperature very near to that of the total absence 

 of that molecular movement or vibration which we call 

 " heat," can now be attained by the use of liquid hydrogen, 

 which enables us, by its evaporation, to come within a 

 few degrees (actually three!) of that condition known 

 as the "absolute zero." We divide into one hundred 



equal steps or degrees the column of liquid (mercury, 



173 



