"DUST THOU ART."

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVI, Issue XLVI, 27 January 1911, Page 2

"DUST THOU ART."

THE MEOHANLSM OF LIFE. At a recent, meeting of I'Ke Ruiitgen Society Dr. \V. Deane Butcher, editor t* the "Archives oi' the Rontgen liay," ~a.ve an address on the subject of "Os- , rnoitie Growth and the Mechanism of Life." By osmotic growth is meant the ,' growth purely of mineral substances. ' without the intervention of. gercnis or ivem of radio activity, and 'proceeding >y means' of pressure—the same pressure, said Dr. Butcher, as that which iOrced the blade- of grass through the od and lifted the sap to the topmost -wig of the-tree. Very little work has >een done upon this subject in Engiind, and the chief pioneer in these investigations, which may yet throw a ;reat deal of light if not on. the origin, it any rate on the mechanism of life, is Professor Leduc, of Nantes, with whom ■ )t. Butcher has been collaborating. Dr. Butcher took up Huxley's famiiar parable of the piece of chalk. Hux'ey showed that the inert chalk was .•omposed of matter in which formerly 'here had been a veritable riot of life: Jut latter-day science, said Dr. Butcher, .vent further. It taught that not only lad that piece of chalk "lived" in the past —in the form of the diatoms, etc., .vhich now formed its seemingly dead ;omponents—but that it might "live" igain in the future. The inanimate lump of chalk was not dead but sleeping. If it were dissolved in acid and •nd treated so as to produce oxide, and were dropped into a solution of sili:ate of soda, which also had been ster'Hsed 'by heat, the chalk would "grow," -.nd assume extraordinary forms resembling those of organic life before 't'heir .-ery eyes. He carried out this experiment at the meeting- by means of the projection lantern, dropping a piece of. burnt chalk into a solution of silicate oda. Within a few moments it began io sprout. " What appeared 'to be in form and structure the branch, of a tree shot up with a series of jerks, and on reaching a less den?e solution of the •-.ilicate of soda it put out twigs and leaves. Extraordinary structures, of which Dr. Butcher showed; a great- variety, were '.obtained by\ the use of various minerals'in solution, appearing as a curious spiny projection, others again hardly to Ja&.. 'distinguished from a seashell. The living thing, said Dr. Butcher, drew its enertjy from.' the dust and returned to the dust again. A great deal has 'been said about germs, but germs onlv played the paxt of Prince to the Sleeping Beauty, waking the force. and vitality which were already in the dust, though frozen/ in a dreamless trance. It was curious how ancient literatures- and religious beliefs'coincided in saying that man was ma'de from the dust of the ground. Probably the idea was more essentially true than had been realised hitherto. It found the highest expression, of course, in the Gtory of Genesis;-andj again, there was a suggestion of it in the ■■ words •of Jesus: "•God is able of these '.stones to raise up children unto Abraham.'" It was in the stones, i.e., the mineral dust —that, they sought the energy which explained the How:of-life. But as> to the ,Why of life! they' were in no better condition than the prophet'of old who said. "The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."