1 88 SECRETS OF EARTH AND SEA 



active ultra-violet rays of light — might be able to disinte- 

 grate and destroy the bacteria, even when frozen solid at 

 the lowest temperature. He exposed his frozen cultures 

 to strong light, excluding any heat-giving rays, and found 

 that the bacteria no longer recovered when subsequently 

 the culture was thawed. Light, certain rays of light, can, 

 it thus appears, penetrate and cause destructive vibrations 

 in chemical bodies protected from all other disintegrating 

 agencies by the solidity conferred by extreme cold. I am 

 not able to say, at the moment, how far this important 

 matter has been pursued by further experiment, nor 

 whether what are called the " chemically active " rays of 

 light and other rays such as the Rontgen rays can effect 

 chemical change in other bodies (besides living germs), 

 upon which they act at normal temperatures, but in regard 

 to which they might be expected to be inoperative when 

 the bodies in question are brought into the peculiar state 

 of inactivity produced by extreme cold. Since light is far 

 more intense outside our atmosphere than within it, it 

 seemed, at first, that the demonstration of its destructive 

 action on frozen germs puts an end to Kelvin's theory of 

 a meteoric origin of life. It must, however, be remembered 

 that minute living germs could conceivably be protected 

 from the access of light by being embedded in even very 

 small opaque particles of meteoric clay. So Lord 

 Kelvin's suggestion as to the travelling of life on meteoric 

 dust cannot be set aside as involving the supposition of 

 the persistence of life in conditions known to be destruc- 

 tive of it. 



The great interest in former times in relation to 

 " suspended animation " has naturally been in relation to 

 the occurrence of this condition in man and the possibility 

 of producing it in man by this or that treatment. There 

 is no doubt whatever, at the present day, that " death-like " 

 trances, whether occurring naturally or after the adminis- 



