AN UNKNOWN WORLD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 21068, 30 December 1931, Page 3

AN UNKNOWN WORLD.

MARVELS OF PLANT LIFE. FAMOUS INDIAN SCIENTIST. TSY I. ATT. A BfXTrNG. Manv people will probably look at tiffs and all the precious things (hat grow in their gardens with an increased love, and understanding when they realise that no longer may they be regarded as beit g coldly unresponsive, almost inanimate, but instead, that they are responsive. to stimuli, to anaesthetics, and that (hey even have their moods of depression—as wo do! Professor ildcr 15. Cancroft. of Cornell University, who has been experimenting with (he crazy plant (Mimosa l'udica), told the National Academy of Science, according to recentnewspaper accounts, (hat. he had found plants, like animals, could ho made insensitive by various drugs for the same reasons and in approximately the same wav. The}' were even sensitive to alcohol, it had been found, but the exact way in which they reacted was left to the imagination. In his institute in Calcutta Sir Jagadis Piose, the famous Indian scientist, has been experimenting for many years along somewhat- similar lines, and as far hack as 1918 had reached somewhat similar conclusions. r l o have been told that the "heartbeats" of a plant could be registered would have been regarded as the wildest fairy tide at one time, but to-day people are beginning to ask themselves — is there anything that is impossible or unbelievable—so great has been tlie march of science. Not only has this been done at tlie institute, but the effect upon the "heartbeat" of a plant (or what may be regarded as the heartbeat!) of ii'istimulantj and a narcotic has been tested and registered. and at the same time the eft Oct ~of both upon the heartbeat of a fish, to illustrate the similarity of effect upon the two. Sir Jagadis had long aijo proved that plants had a conductive tissue which corresponded to the nervous tissue of animals and his experiments had sho.v.i that all the characteristics of the nervous impulse in animals were to he seen in the corresponding impulse in plants. 'lbis would seem to bear out Professor Bancroft's theory of the thickening or thinning of proteins in the plant according as it was drugged or stimulated. 'frees, it had been -found, were instinct with sensibility. Their rigid trunks were great pulvinoids, which perceived and responded to the stimuli of their environment. When I met Sir Jagadis i3ose at his institute in Calcutta, he was on the point of sailing for Europe. A slender, supple figure, dark hair powdered with grey, eyes holding in their depths the contemplative look so characteristic of the Indian, and a quiet dignified maimer—such was the appearance and personafity of the scientist. To prove that all life is one in essence, that from the single pattern is woven the whole scheme of organic life and that all the characteristics of the higher animal world had been foreshadowed in the plant life, is the task to which he has given his life. It was to do this work that the Kose Institute was founded and the ideal of the founder is that it shall be a national institute, with its doors thrown open to students from all over the world. Sir Jagadis Pose has stated that discoveries made at the institute will become public property and no patents will ever bo taken out for them. In a Calcutta Garden.

The institute comprises several wings enclosing a garden with green lawns and leafv trees, cool and tranquil in the heart of the teeming Indian quarter of Calcutta. Inside and out research workwas going on, and inch by inch the veil of nivsterv witli which Mother Xatuic lias clothed" herself was being slowly and lovingly lifted by these patient seeders after the Ultimate. Underneath a tree, yet placed so thnfc either sunshine or aliadow could play upon it, as directed, an experiment was being conducted at the time of my visit showing the reactions of a plant enclosed in a glass bulb to either the one or the other, with a registering instrument to mark the results. Under the influence of sunlight the digestive system of the plant was stimulated and the gas thrown off intensified, the result being that- dots in the registering instrument were closely spaced. Under the effects of shadow the energies of the plant diminished, the registering grew slow, and the dots were wide apart. Day by day, sunshine and in shadow, this I ceaseless ebb and How of life goes on ( around us arpong the plant life, akin !to ouriown yet totally unknown and unsuspected by us. Nature's Unity. Perhaps the greatest of all the scientist's triumphs in the mejjiod of experiment and invention of i super-sensitive apparatus was achieved in researches on growth. The growth of a plant is a very slow process. If it grew continuously it would take several hundred years to cover a mile. To record this growth, Sir Jagadis Hose has invented an instrument which magnifies and records tho movement of growth 10.000 times, and by its means it is possible to detect the growth of a plant for a period shorter than a hundredth part of a second. By this means most interesting discoveries were made, such, for instance, that tho growth of a plant was affected by Stimulants far below human perception. Mechanical irritation of any kind retarded or arrested growth, so also did rough handling or rough contact. A pinprick depressed the rate of growth to a third, and a wound caused a far greater depression, the wounded plant remaining depressed for several hours. To carry out certain aspects of his work, the' scientist has invented instruments of inconceivable delicacy. One registers the approach of a person who may pass or remain stationary some distance from it without any sort of contact. Others, again, are still more minute in their operations. Step by step the great Mother is revealing her marvels to these seekers after knowledge, and as veil after veil is removed, what at first appeared to be a maze of complexity is being resolved into a question of simple laws in which there is 110 breach of continuity.