- 1883.} Organic Physics. 135 
stance that the articles found in the graves in question evince no 
higher skill than that attained by the more advanced of the his- 
torically known tribes of North American Indians, there hardly 
remains any reasonable ground for not ascribing to such tribes 
the humble mortuary receptacles treated in this hasty sketch. 
ORGANIC PHYSICS. 
BY CHARLES MORRIS. 
(Continued from page 563, Vol. X VI.) 
2. Tak OrGANIC FUNCTION OF OXYGEN. 
The subject here proposed is one to which considerable atten- 
tion has been paid by inductive science, with the result of conclu- 
sively demonstrating that organic activity is strictly dependent 
upon the presence of oxygen, and that every animal, and each 
organ of every animal, displays an activity in close accordance 
with its supply of oxygen. This is about all that has been de- 
duced from the facts observed, but is certainly not all that they 
indicate. Much wider deductions may be made; some, perhaps, 
only conjectural, yet others apparently unavoidable, and by their 
aid a fuller conception of the motor power of the animal kingdom 
"o7 be gained. Such deductions must also include the vegetable 
kingdom, since it is now known that plants breathe oxygen as 
persistently as animals, and that they continue active only during 
their period of active oxygenation. 
ut to persistent vital activity nutrition is as essential as oxy- 
genation. The one is the key that winds up the clock of life; 
the other is the spring that sets its wheels in motion, and frees its 
restrained energies. Oxygen eats into and breaks down the com- 
plex molecules of protoplasm. Nutrition rebuilds these mole- 
cules. Thus life forever swings, between limits of chemical 
analysis and synthesis. In the downward swing it bursts into 
~ full activity, and beats against the barriers of the outer world. In 
the upward swing it relapses into inactivity, and all its energies 
Are employed in the chemical labor of forming new molecules of 
protoplasm 
These processes can hardly be simultaneous. The reduction 
4 of protoplasm by oxidation, and its reproduction in the opposite 
inot take place at once in the same cell. — 
he y in every limited portion of tissue oxidation and repro- 
