170 



NATUBAL SCIENCE NEWS. 



"made absolute," as the lawyers 

 have it, the test of the exact na- 

 ture of a living being might be re- 

 ferred to the capability of the 

 former to inhale oxygen and to 

 emit carbonic acid, as a part re- 

 sult of its bodily waste. The 

 plant, on this showing, might con- 

 versely be known by its power of 

 reversing this operation, and by 

 its inhaling carbonic acid and giv- 

 ing out oxygen as the result of its 

 vital chemistry. 



But is it true that all plants ab- 

 sorb carbonic acid gas and inhale 

 oxygen? Let us refer the matter 

 to the chemist and botanist as ar- 

 bitrators, and let them detail the 

 results of their experiences. As 

 you walk in a garden on a bright 

 summer's day, your eye is pleased 

 with the grateful green of the veg- 

 etation around. The botanist tells 

 you that this green colour — of all 

 hues the most grateful and refresh- 

 ing to the human eye — is to be 

 taken as a test of a plant's capac- 

 ity to subsist on carbonic acid. 

 Wherever you see a green leaf — 

 no matter whether it forms part of 

 a stately tree, or exists in a lowly 

 blade of grass — the botanist will 

 inform you that there the great 

 operation of plant life may pro- 

 ceed; and that within the leaf-tis- 

 sues, carbonic acid gas, through 

 the exercise of tbe vital chemistry 

 of the plant, is being split up or 

 decomposed into its constituents 

 — carbon and oxygen. The car- 

 bon, he will further tell you, is re- 

 tained by the plant to serve for 

 food, whilst the oxygen is liberat- 

 ed and passes back to the atmos- 

 phere to afford food to the animal. 

 But our botanical friend would al- 

 so inform us that before the green 

 colouring-matter can thus decom- 

 pose the carbonic acid, it must be 

 subjected to the action of light. 

 Light forms, in fact, the second 

 condition required for the perform- 

 ance of this chemical act on the 

 part of the plant; the presence of 

 chlorophyll being the first con- 

 dition. What, then, will happen 

 when the daylight fades, and dark- 

 ness falls on the plant world? 

 His reply is that in the dark the 

 green plant becomes an animal, 

 and, like its living neighbour, 

 breathes oxygen and emits carbon- 

 ic acid. Hence this distinction of 

 inhaling carbonic acid and exhal- 

 ing oxygen on the part of the 

 plant is only a functional one, and 

 at best one of temporary nature. 

 Depending on it alone, we should 

 be compelled to call a buttercup 

 or any other green vegetable a 

 plant in the light, and an animal 



in the dark. Further, it is a dis- 

 tinction which does not hold good 

 for the whole vegetable kingdom, 

 and in this latter phase it must al- 

 so regarded as unsatisfactory. All 

 plants are not green, and such as 

 want the green hue are therefore 

 found to be incapable of utilizing 

 carbonic acid. A mushroom, a 

 toadstool, and others of their fun- 

 goid neighbours, have, in conse- 

 quence of their lack of green col- 

 ouring-matter, no partiality for 

 carbonic acid. Habitually and 

 normally, they are therefore ani- 

 mals in all essential particulars re- 

 lating to their breathing; since 

 they inhale oxygen and emit car- 

 bonic acid at all times, and wheth- 

 er in the darkness or in the light. 



It is time, however, to call a 

 halt in this process of scientific 

 fault-finding, and to the task of 

 showing how completely worthless 

 most of the distinctions which the 

 naturalists of bygone days drew 

 between animals and[|plants, have 

 been rendered by the progress of 

 scientific research. Are all dis 

 distinctions, then, of no avail in 

 this task of separating one group 

 from the other, and are we literal- 

 ly unable to say at the present 

 time of some organisms, "This is 

 an animal and that is a plant?" 

 To these questions an affirmative 

 answer must be returned. There 

 are some lower forms of life — and 

 the Monads are of them — which 

 may either be one or the other. 

 So hopeless have some biologists 

 become of drawing distinctions be- 

 tween animals and plants, that 

 they have proposed to construct 

 what has well been termed "a 

 kind of biological No Man's Land" 

 — a territory belonging neither to 

 the animal world nor to the plant 

 world, but composed of uncertain 

 living units, which are at home in 

 neither kingdom. Such is the 

 "Regnum Protisticum" of some 

 writers. By most biologists, how- 

 ever, this arrangement has not 

 been received with favour, for the 

 construction and admission of this 

 neutral territory or "refuge for the 

 destitute," seems to amount to a 

 tacit avowal of our absolute in- 

 capacity to separate out its mem- 

 bers into their proper grades in 

 the two kingdoms of living nature. 

 — In 11 Science for A//." 



Agassiz. 



On the 17th of June, 1885, Prof- 

 essor Burt G. Wilder delivered an 

 address at Cornell University, at 

 the unveiling of a tablet to the 

 memory of Louis Agassiz. As 



many of our readers have not seen 

 this paper, we quote a few of the 

 more striking passages. He thus 

 describes 



AGASSIZ'S WORKING HABITS. 



"His working habits were sim- 

 ple in the extreme. His private 

 room was rarely occupied. The 

 specimens and books he wished to 

 examine were usually on a plain 

 table in the common room, and in 

 the few hours he could snatch 

 from overwhelming administrative 

 duties, he never seemed so happy 

 as when, resting a "loot upon the 

 stool which at other times served 

 him in the place of a chair, he 

 held in one hand some Brazilian 

 fish, and with the other turned the 

 pages or plates from which to de- 

 termine questions of identity, af- 

 finity, or distribution. While thus 

 engaged he sometimes whistled 

 very softly a little air the source of 

 which I never ascertained." 



To illustrate his constant alert- 

 ness he gives the following 



ANCEDOTE OF AGASSIZ. 



"Thirty years ago the following 

 is said to have occurred: A sum- 

 mer party of Harvard professors 

 were driven through the White 

 Mountains. As the coach slowly 

 ascended a hill, Agassiz and others 

 would leave it and presently re- 

 turn laden with stones and wild 

 flowers, or ornamented with bee- 

 tles and butterflies pinned to their 

 hats and the lappels of their coats. 

 Professor Felton sat in the coach 

 perusing a favorite Greek author. 

 "Who are those fellows" at last 

 asked the coachman, in whose eyes 

 plants were interesting merely as 

 food for his animals, minerals as 

 likely to impede progress, and in- 

 sects as apt to interfere with per- 

 sonal comfort. "They are a party 

 of naturalists" said Felton. "Ah!" 

 replied he, "that accounts for it, 

 poor fellows." A few days later 

 he drove another party, to whom 

 he confided his experience as fol- 

 lows: "Last Thursday I had the 

 queerest lot of passengers you ever 

 saw; they were men grown and 

 dressed like gentlemen; but they 

 kept jumping out of the coach,and 

 like little children ran about the 

 field chasing butterflies and bugs, 

 which they stuck all over their 

 clothes. Their keeper told me 

 they was naturals; and judging by 

 their conduct, I should say they 

 was." Thus, the great naturalist 

 was taken for a harmless lunatic; 

 but he persisted and the people at 

 last listened to his precepts and 

 followed his example. And if to- 



