MYSTEKY OF THE CELL 375 



living body of each organism in a prescribed and lUK-liangcable 

 sequence of events. But this orderly process is quite unintel- 

 ligible without some directive org,anising power constantly at 

 work in or upon every chemical atom or physical niolcculv of 

 the whole structure, as one after another they are brought to 

 their places, and built in, as it were, to the structure of every 

 tissue of every organ as it takes form and substance in tlie 

 fabric of the living, moving, and, in the case of animals, sensi- 

 tive creation. 



I will conclude this short sketch of cell-life and its mystery, 

 with a picturesque account of one striking example in the ani- 

 mal world, from Professor Lloyd Morgan's illuminating vol- 

 ume. 



There is, perhaps, no more wonderful instance of rapid and 

 vigorous growth than the formation of the antlers of deer. These 

 splendid weapons and adornments are shed every year, in the 

 spring, when they are growing, they are covered over with a dark 

 skin provided with short, line, thick-set hair, and technically termed 

 " the velvet.'^ If you lay your hand on the growing antler, you will 

 feel that it is hot with the nutrient blood that is coursing beneath 

 it. It is, too, exceedingly sensitive and tender. An army of tens 

 of thousands of busv livinor cells is at work beneath that velvet 

 surface, building the bony antlers, preparing for the battles of 

 autunm. Each minute cell knows its work, and does it for llie 

 general good — so perfectly is the body knit into an organic whole. 

 It takes up from the nutrient blood the special materials it requires ; 

 out of them it elaborates the crude bone-stuff, at first soft as wax, 

 but ere long to become as hard as stone; and then, having done iis 

 work, having added its special morsel to the fabric of the antler, it 

 remains imbedded and immured, buried beneath the bone prodiRis 

 o": its successors or descendants. No hive of Ijccs is busier or more 

 replete with active life than the antler of a stag as it grows ])eneatli 

 the soft warm ' elvet. And thus are built up in the eoiirsp of a few 

 weeks those splendid "beams" with their " tynos '' and "snags," 

 which, in the case of the wapiti, even in the continomont of the 

 Zoological Gardens, may reach a weight of thirty-two ]>ounds, and 



