FERMENTATION. 



91 



md chlorine, or into nitrogen and iodine. Thus a tower 

 nade of 2NCI3, or of two large and six small blocks, ;s trans- 

 "ormed into two towers, one composed of two large blocks 

 md one of six small ones, or rather into four towers, one 

 ;omposed of the two large blocks and three each composed 

 )f two small ones (2NCl3=N^ + 3 CI,), and along with the 

 "ailing of these molecules into their lower positions there is 

 I setting free of energy which manifests itself in the form of 

 leat and light. Consider now that in your tower or in your 

 ■ow of bricks you have continual oscillation going on ; the 

 elastic bands are being continually pulled upon by certain 

 'orces which we may say are light and heat ; there is continual 

 notion in every part of the tower, or the bricks standing on 

 ;nd are continually oscillating backwards and forwards, but 

 aever sufficiently far to disturb the equilibrium completely, 

 ffhen suddenly a third element of disturbance sets in, a small 

 )rganism comes near and wishes to take out one of the 

 slocks from the tower for its own use ; it seizes the time 

 .vhen the oscillation is greatest, and giving a little extra pull 

 t removes the block, seizes on it firmly and immediately, and 

 :he rest of the tower collapses ; or in the case of the swaying 

 )ricks, although it has no power alone to upset the first brick 

 n the row, by striking it just when its oscillation is at one 

 ;xtreme phase it assists light or heat, pushes this first sway- 

 ng brick a little further and causes the collapse of the whole 

 ine. Bunge gives a series of exarnples of the breaking down 

 )f such chemical substances into simpler materials, and shows 

 low certain ordinary chemical substances along with heat, or 

 !ven heat alone, may act as fermentation exciters. Thus he 

 )oints out how a blow can initiate the breaking up of nitro- 

 glycerine into carbonic acid, water, nitrogen, and oxygen. 



Nitro-glycerine is highly unstable, not so much from the 

 lements which it contains as from the method of arrange- 

 nent of the atoms of the elements. Some oxygen has been 

 nduced to unite with nitrogen, a substance for which under 

 irdinary circumstances it has little affinity, it having at the 

 ame time a much stronger affinity for both carbon and 

 lydrogen than these have for one another ; rapid and exten- 

 ive oscillations are constantly going on, the slightest increase 

 if which must be followed by a new arrangement of mole- 

 ules. A sharp tap so increases these oscillations that the 

 quilibrium of the tower is disturbed, the weak bands between 



