grow. The support is invisible from the plant's starting point. There is no odor which, as is possible in the location of water, might give the plant some clue to the direction in which its support may be found. The only explanation seems to be the existence in a plant of a psychic sense.

There is at least one other sense which is possessed by plants in a marked degree. This may be called the physical sense. For example, most

house plants which in their domestication have assumed more or less artificial forms, will, on being returned to their original haunts, reassume their original forms or natural There must be in the plant some prompting sense which makes it realize any unfitness in its life or being.

forms.

"Plants, then, have seven senses: sight, hearing, feeling, taste, smell, a psychic sense, and a physical sense; or six senses

!

181

and a reasoning power-if the physical sense be admitted as such. These senses

might be termed 'passive' mentality: that is, senses which, to perform their functions, possibly do not require any command of the will, but are merely natural to the plants.

"If, however, these seven senses are but passive powers, and not in any way an evidence of intelligence in the plant, there are certain actual and purposeful motions of the plant which might be called its 'active' mentality."

S

HORTLY after the discovery of radium Sir William Crookes

was able to announce that it had been possible to devise an instrument that did not, indeed, make it possible actually to see an atom, but that enabled the observer to watch the action of a single atom. The spinthariscope, as the instrument is called, consists of a flat surface of phosphorescent material above which is mounted a needle that has been scratched against the side of a vessel which has contained radium. The observer looks through a magnifying glass and as the speck of radium sends out alpha particles in all directions, he is able to see successive splashes of light as one particle after another is hurled on to the phosphorescent material at a speed about a tenth that of light.

That such a sight would ever be seen must a few years ago, notes a bulletin of the Chemical Society (London), have been thought impossible, as indeed it might well be when it is remembered that if a drop of water were to be magnified to the size of the earth its three-atom molecules would be intermediate between the size of shot and cannon balls. Even this achievement, however, has been surpassed recently by a brilliant demonstration. Making use of a chamber of exhausted air, the experimenter photographs it at the moment when an alpha particle is passing through it. The particle shatters the molecules in its path, moisture is immediately condensed on the shattered particles and it is possible by the streak of fog to trace exactly the course the particle has pursued. The classical mode of demonstrating the existence of emanation is as follows:

"The emanation is got from radium by dissolving it, and is collected in a flask mixed with oxygen and hydrogen. The volume of emanation dealt with is usually about the size of a pin's head. The

vessel containing the impure emanation is connected to an air-tight arrangement of tubes. A portion of this is cooled with liquid air, and the emanation is condensed owing to the extreme cold. When

the liquid air is removed the emanation again becomes a gas, and makes its presence seen by causing a piece of phosphorescent material to fluoresce. Such an ex

periment can be arranged on a large scale for demonstration purposes, and is a striking one, but it is particularly for the experiments which established the facts about emanation that our admiration must be reserved."

The most attractive feature in connection with the work is the way in which recent theoretical results and theoretical assumptions have been verified and confirmed by experiments that have come into more and more exact relation with theory as their degree of accuracy has increased:

"It was assumed, for instance, by Professor Rutherford in the early days that each alpha particle carried a standard the ionic charge. It has already been seen charge of positive electricity, known as that the super-activity of radium is due to the fact that ordinary radium bromide. contains entangled with it several decomposition products of radium each of which is itself disintegrating. It was an early observation, reading like a fairy tale of alchemy, that if a radium salt was separise it lost temporarily a portion of its rated from the products to which it gave radio-activity, which was found in the

emanation given off, and that the impoverished radium regained its activity just in proportion as the other decayed. The sum of the electric charge on the alpha particles sent out from radium during a unit of time during this period of minimum activity was measured, and this divided by the ionic charge gave the stu

pendous number of thirty-six thousand million as that of the alpha particles which would be emitted every second by about one-thirtieth of an ounce, or one gram, of radium bromide."

It may be taken as universally accepted that several well-known elements, such as uranium, radium, thorium and actinium and their elementary products, are having their atoms disintegrated into other atoms at a steady rate with which as yet it has not been possible to interfere. It is accepted also that in the phenomenon of radio

ATOM THAT

activity we are present at the birth of the comparatively well-known substance helium. There are many who go very much further. Sir William Ramsay and others consider that the evidence is accumulating to show that it has been possible to synthesize helium from hydrogen, neon from hydrogen and oxygen, argon from sulphur and hydrogen, and krypton from silenium and hydrogen. At the Chemical Society of London last year it seemed possible that Professor Collie and Professor Patterson had succeeded in demonstrating that this was so as regards two of them. Only last year, again, Professor Soddy, in opening a discussion before a meeting of chemists in England, drew attention to the view that in the case of those elements whose evolution was still proceeding each of them consisted, on an average, of not less than four substances, the atomic weights of which varied by as much as eight units. He went further than this and suggested that each of the known elements might in reality be a group of nonseparable elements occupying the same place-in other words, that each of the so-called elements might, in reality, be a group rather than an individual.

The net deduction from these obser

vations taken together has reference to the stupendous amount of energy locked up within what we call an atom. It has been argued that the future source of the world's energy will be derived by finding a means for artificially breaking up the atom and utilizing the intra-atomic energy. When one considers that a gram of radium gives out every hour enough heat to melt one and three-fifths times its own weight of ice, and that the total amount of heat it is destined to emit is more than a million times as great as that given out in the formation of one gram of water from its constituents, it is not surprising that it should have excited the imaginations of men and led them to hope that a

means may be found to unlock the energy contained in other atoms and thus secure an unlimited store of energy.

A

LL modern spectroscopic progress, as Professor C. G. Abbot observes in the last annual report of the Smithsonian Institution, depends upon the exact knowledge of the wave lengths of the lines of absorption or emission of the chemical elements. Long ago it was discovered that sodium and its compounds, when heated to incandescence, gave out a yellow light which, when examined by the spectroscope, resolved itself into two lines of wave lengths differing by some half dozen units of measurement. It was also found that when sodium vapor was interposed between a source of white light, like the electric arc, and the slit of the spectroscope, there would be found in the place of the bright yellow lines of sodium two dark lines of absorption, where light of the arc spectrum was taken away. Similarly, in the spectrum of iron, a great number of bright lines are found in the green; and if iron vapor be interposed between an electric arc light and the slit of the spectroscope, a great number of absorption lines will be found at the corresponding places. Also in the spectra of the sun and of many of the stars there occur dark lines corresponding exactly in place to the bright lines of the spectra of the chemical elements found upon the earth's surface. From these indications it is clear that these chemical elements exist as vapors in the substance of the sun and stars. The number of chemical elements in the sun and stars is so considerable and the number of their spectrum lines is so great that the solar and stellar spectra are thronged with dark lines. It requires a most exact knowledge of the positions of the lines to insure for them a correct interpretation. Professor Abbot* notes further:

even farther, and say that there is a difference in the position of the spectrum lines of the sun according as we take the light from one edge of the sun or the other. For one edge is approaching the earth by virtue of the rotation of the sun, while the other is receding. It is also shown that the position of the spectrum lines depends upon the pressure of the gases in which they are produced, so that it is possible to determine by exact measurements the pressures under which the gases lie in the sun and stars, altho these are so extraordinarily remote that it takes light minutes or years to reach the earth from them. Finally, it has been shown by Zeeman that the form of the spectrum lines of the chemical elements differs according to w ether the light is produced in a magnetic field or not. Accordingly it is possible to determine from measurements of the solar spectrum whether magnetic fields exist in the sun, and, if so, to what intensity they rise."

All these kinds of measurement, which depend upon extremely slight displacements of the spectrum lines, evidently require that great accuracy shall be obtained in the determinations of the positions of these lines in the laboratory. When, about twenty years ago, Rowland completed his famous investigation of the spectrum of the sun and of the chemical elements, it was thought that the last word had been said upon this, and that no greater accuracy of positions of the spectrum lines was necessary or indeed possible than he had obtained. In recent years, however, it has been found necessary, to go over the whole ground again and to determine the positions of the lines of the chemical elements and the lines in the spectrum of the sun with a still greater accuracy than that of Rowland. This work has been taken up under the auspices of the International Solar

Union and is now approaching a satisfactory completion. It was resolved at a recent meeting of the Union that only wave lengths which are independently determined with satisfactory agreement by three observers with the most approved apparatus should be accepted as secondary wave length standards. In accordance with this action of the Solar Union, physicists of the highest eminence in this country, in France and in Germany have been determining with the utmost possible accuracy the wave lengths of certain lines in the spectra of iron and nickel, selected at nearly equal intervals of wave length. Nearly ninety such lines have now been measured with satisfactory agreement in three or more independent investigations and have been adopted by the International Solar Union as secondary standards of wave length. The astonIshing accuracy of the results obtained may be inferred when it is said that the three independent investigations generally agree to the seventh place of significant figures. It now remains to go over the whole system of spectra of all the chemical elements and determine the positions of their lines with respect to these standard lines of iron, nickel, and barium which have been adopted, and further to go over the whole solar spectrum and to determine the position of its absorption lines with respect to these standards. Altho this will involve an enormous amount of careful work, it is almost beyond question that it will yield unexpected fruits of discovery in addition to those of investigations of the nature of the sun and of the stars for which it is primarily undertaken. The final results will be communicated to the academies of science in all the nations.

T

HE beginning of the proof that there is survival after death must be sought in telepathy, declares Sir Oliver Lodge. Telepathy in this sense he defines as a "connection" between mind and mind through unknown and apparently immaterial channels. Unfortunately, he laments, contemporary men of science generally will not investigate the subject in a scientific spirit. Not even a paper on telepathy, he writes in the London Times, has been accepted by any orthodox scientific society. The whole subject is taboo. Whatever may be said in favor of this attitude as a safeguard—and he is far from denying that many workers are wise to attend to their own business and not lightly to enter upon strange fields of inquiry-the fact is undoubtedly so. Notwithstanding the judicial favor which has been shown by some of the leaders in science to the examination of unrecognized human faculties, the average scientific man has made up his mind that things out of the common are impossible and he will not listen with any seriousness to evidence for them. Consequently the subject has been studied and the evidence partially published by a specially constituted organization, the Society for Psychical Research, with the name of which all are familiar. The society was founded in the face of the opposition and ridicule of eminent scientists. The work has been carried on in a most critical and careful manner. In the official proceedings, says Sir Oliver Lodge, moreover, can be found “a record of facts which to most of those who have studied the subject amount to cumulative proof of the reality" not admitted by orthodox science. Of these facts telepathy is one:

"But, as always happens when a truth is coming to the surface and something is being discovered which was there all the time, the real proofs lie all about one, and are not dependent on records of the past. The facts may be more or less unpalatable, but there they are; they can hardly be apprehended, still less assimilated, without a mind sufficiently open to permit the beginning of an unusual course of study.

"All this is quite in accordance with ordinary scientific tradition; many new subjects have had to run the gauntlet of orthodox hostility. Admittedly only a minority of scientific men are willing to declare that a new class of facts needs investigation and is apparently a prelude to a whole new region of knowledge inaccessible by exclusively material methods. "In any public utterance of mine I am careful to say some words to the effect that I am expressing my own conviction based upon many years of skeptical inquiry, and that while a few scientific men

"Scientific men (other than those of the small group specified above by Sir Oliver Lodge), several of whom are intimately acquainted with the Psychical Research Society's publications from the beginning, and have had personal experience of

facts' of the kind alleged, fail to recog

nize any facts which cannot be readily

explained, or referred to well-known causes, without recourse to the purely fanciful invention of 'telepathy.' They hold that all the evidence produced in support of telepathy is valueless as proof, not only to hypercritical (or 'orthodox') scientists, but also to men of ordinary common sense who ask for proof of a new 'fact' before they believe in it. To such men Sir Oliver's only answer is that they have 'made up their minds that things out of the common are impossible.' But can Sir Oliver deny that the utmost rigor of scientific proof is justly called for when he makes his confessedly 'tremendous' announcement to the public that he has scientific grounds for believing that he has talked with the dead? Yet he persists in confusing proof of an objective fact with evidence for his own convictions.

"Any fruitful inquiry into this subject must begin, as Sir Ray Lankester has said, with an investigation as to how certain persons, who believe and assert that minds of deceased persons or of persons at a great distance communicate with the minds of living persons independently of the ordinary organs of sense, have arrived at their conclusions. And those who might hold such an inquiry should include amongst them persons well acquainted with physiology, psychology, and mental pathology. It is worthy of note that the large majority of those scientists who assert their belief in telepathy belong to the class of physicists, not to that which deals with the mind or other phenomena of life."

183

men of science who hold similar views, appear to fall between two stools, asserts the well-known English physicist and student of philosophy, Doctor H. S. Shelton, in London Science Progress.

On the evidential side, Doctor Shelton says he has found nothing which could carry conviction to or even merit serious consideration by anyone not naturally predisposed to some form of "spiritualist" conclusions. On the other hand, if the evidence proves anything at all, it proves far too much.

In all attempts to establish by observation or experiment the existence of survival after death, the would-be investigator has to consider at least the following four explanations of any facts he may observe:

"(1) Trickery, conscious or unconscious; (2) that striking series of facts

which psychologists are slowly gathering together concerning hypnosis and dual and multiple personalities; (3) telepathy; (4) ghosts. He will not invoke (3) until he has exhausted (1) and (2) and all other known explanations. He will not invoke (4) until he has exhausted (3).

"Taking these in order, with regard to the first, few will need reminding that a well-known conjuror has never yet failed to reproduce every phenomenon credited to 'spirits' that has been brought before him. Moreover, he is also known to have remarked that, for the detection of trickery of this kind, he would place more reliance on the acumen of two smart schoolboys than in the whole Council of the Royal Society.

"The second is, scientifically, a problem of surpassing interest. The curious series of facts constituting multiple personalities, and other allied phenomena, are adding an important province to the realm of psychology, and are, indeed, doing something to redeem that science from the charge of verbalism and futility. But why invoke the 'spirits'? Are not all these phenomena as readily explained in a perfectly natural manner as sleep unconsciousness and dreams? Their evidential value is nil. And, moreover, the very fact of their existence supplies an alternative explanation for many phenomena that might otherwise be taken as supplying evidence of 'possession.'

"The writer is not prepared to admit that there is sufficient evidence for asserting the existence of telepathy. Even this must be regarded as not proven. But even if we grant, for the sake of argument, that such a thing does exist, none knows better than Sir Oliver Lodge that the 'spiritualistic' hypothesis is not advanced one iota. All the materialist would thereby admit as proved would be that, as the larynx can emit and the ear receive the atmospheric waves of sound, as the eye can receive the etherial waves of light, so the undifferentiated nervous matter of the brain has some residual power of emitting and receiving vibrations of a wave-length previously unsus

P

ROJECTILES responsible for the wounds treated after each great battle in Europe are for the most part infantry projectiles, shrapnel bullets, shell fragments, bomb fragments and aeroplane arrows. To these should be added dumdum projectiles, bullets deflected from their original course and what might be termed indirect projectiles, fragments of clothing, coins and other objects from the soldier's pockets which have been forced into the wound. The effect of projectiles depends mainly on their percussive force, size, shape, material, direction and goal, as well as on the number, firmness and tension of the organs struck. The aeroplane arrow is new weapon which has made its first appearance in the present war. It is a steel rod of the thickness of a The rear pencil, with pointed shaft. end is grooved out square so that the point is heavier than the end. As an arrow such as this falls vertically to the ground, from a great height, it will have the speed of a rifle bullet perhaps by the time it reaches a tar get. The wounds made by these missiles are very serious.

a

The lessons in military surgery resulting from the discharge of such varied projectiles formed the subject of a remarkable lecture before an audience of army experts by the celebrated Leipzig surgeon, Doctor Payr, reported by the Berlin correspondent of The Scientific American. According to an old classification the lecturer distinguished several categories of shots:

"Ricochets, when the projectile does not penetrate into the body; embedded shots ('Steckschüsse'), when the projectile sticks fast in the body, and piercing shots ('Durchschüsse'), when the projectile pierces the body and comes out at the other end. The degree of harm done to the tissues and organs obviously depends on a number of accessory circumstances. It was thought in former times that blood vessels could bend out of the way of projectiles. However, modern infantry projectiles have been found to penetrate right through the vessels, even small arteries whose diameter does not exceed that of a quill being pierced. This is why a far greater number of artery lesions have to be dealt with in the present war.

"Wounds made by modern projectiles in bones and joints are of especial importance. At short range, bones will be shattered into a number of fragments. As the distance increases there is a growing tendency for the projectiles to pierce the bone, and just to produce one or two cracks in the neighborhood of the hole. The long tubular bones, which are hard as ivory, will be split even at very considerable distance, say 1,600-1,806 meters, whereas bones of a more spongy texture,

WAR IN EUROPE

such as the joint of the knee, are pierced smoothly. This is why shots through the joints take a relatively benign course." The possible effects of shot wounds are hemorrhage, pain, shock, mutilation and death. As regards pain, it is obviously among the foremost duties of the surgeon in war to see that the wounded may as soon as possible get the benefit of alleviating remedies. The general practice now is to administer at the earliest possible moment a morphine injection. Warfare as now waged is liable to result in a special abundance of wounds in the head, soldiers, on firing from the trenches, having to advance their heads. There are two distinct types of head shotsembedded and piercing shots, in which the bullet traverses the head directly or sticks fast in the skull or brain, and tangential or "groove" shots, when the projectile, as it were, plows a groove through the skull bone. Tangential shots should be treated differently from embedded and piercing shots, bone fragments severed by the bullet producing practically always serious infection. nign, tho there are some vital organs Most shots through the neck are beconcerned-blood vessels, nerves, spinal marrow and the esophagus and windpipe. If the windpipe and larynx are

affected, operation should be proceeded with as promptly as possible, thus preventing any risk of stifling:

"Shots through the chest are, of all shots dealt with in modern warfare, those most easily treated. The Japanese used

to say that their men, in the case of simple breast shots, could return to the firing line after a week or so. According to German experience in the present war such patients, even in case the lungs have been pierced, will, at least, be transportable after ten to fourteen days. they may for some days go on coughing out blood, they will in no way be inconvenienced as far as their general condition is concerned. If the heart or aorta has been struck, the surgeon's aid, of

Tho

course, is of no avail, such patients being brought in too late from the battle-field. sible to remove a projectile from the heart, Whereas in time of peace it is quite feasaving the patient's life by a heart suture, any attempt at such an operation, in warfare, would be futile. As it is, modern projectiles are doubtless more humane in their effects than the lead bullets of old, and provided the ribs have not been injured the wounded can, after quite a short time, be restored to full fighting ability. "Shots through the abdomen are an item much discussed in modern war surgery. In time of peace, it is an absolute rule to operate as soon as possible by means of a cut through the abdomen, thus staying the blood, and by opening part of

the stomach and the intestines, to make Already the South African war, however, the wound inoffensive and prevent any infection liable to result in peritonitis. has shown such shots to be more benign in case operation is foregone. In fact,

there are a number of instances in the present war in which good results were obtained by a very simple treatment, the patient being kept for a week absolutely quiet and without food or drink. When. this limit was not observed the condition of the patient would invariably become worse."

The lecturer next proceeded to answer the question as to how bullet wounds should be treated. A certain amount of infection should be, in any case, accounted for, which can not be reduced by any measures whatever. If a patient has, for instance, received a shot through the arm, a certain number of microbes have penetrated into the wound, which it would be impossible to reduce. Rinsing the wound with water or rubbing it with antiseptics, so far from being of any avail, has been found to be harmful, the antiseptic liquid diminishing the vital strength of the tissues. However, no new noxious agents should be added to these microbes. Experience shows that healthy subjects will deal with a given number of bacteria, provided no further germs are allowed to enter the wound. This is the principle controlling in the first phase of the treatment of the wounded. The surroundings of the wound are no longer washed and treated with soaps as once upon a time, but a piece of antiseptic gauze is applied to the wound, such as is contained

crobes be allowed to penetrate into the wound. Cuts through the windpipe and the tying up of pierced blood vessels should, of course, be made on the very battle-field, whereas the decision as to whether any wounded members should be

treatment.

in the roll of bandage carried by every soldier and officer in the field. The first dressing is then applied, which the men or their comrades are trained to do very cleverly. Another method to prevent the microbes from multiplying amputated must be left to the further is what is termed the arresting process. The parts around the wound are brushed over with tincture of iodine or mastisol. The microbes are fixed by mastix. One advantage of this process is that the aseptic gauze is attached to the wound, thus preventing the dressing from being shifted.

Final treatment of wounds comprises a number of other problems, but a point should be made of avoiding too much zeal:

"The wound being well dressed and covered with aseptic gauze, there is no need for the whole bandage being exchanged, it being sufficient to renew the first dressing-made from the man's own outer dressing. Wounds on which the dressing materials-had been left, were found after a week to be healed. The greatest care should in any case be used in renewing the bandage, lest any mi

"No importance is now attached to the removing of projectiles, if the latter cause no inconvenience. This is true of infantry projectiles. According to the lecturer's experience, the German steel sleeve projectile, for some unknown reason, is more humane than the French copper alloy projectile, which frequently causes pain. Shrapnel bullets, which are round, have far less impact and percussive force than infantry projectiles. Penetrating into the deeper parts of the body, along with such foreign bodies as pieces of clothing etc., they are apt to produce suppuration. In 70 to 75 per cent. of shrapnel wounds under treatment, suppuration has been observed, a slight quantity of chocolate-colored liquid coming out of the wound as this is opened. Shell fragments likewise carry along foreign objects and thus give rise to suppuration; they must therefore be removed without delay."

E

VERYONE knows that a nitrogenous fertilizer is an artificial

manure which introduces nitrogen into the soil. The chief material for this purpose is nitrate of soda, which, as saltpeter, is imported into Germany in large quantities from South America. This substance is also the sole raw material for the manufacture of nitric acid and nitric acid is the chief material for the manufacture of all kinds of explosives. The French and British employ picric acid, which is trinitrophenol (lyddite, melinite) and is made by the action of nitric acid on carbolic acid. The Germans are using as their chief explosive trinitrotoluol (tritolyl), which is produced from toluol, a coaltar hydrocarbon, and nitric acid. Now German militarism, writes the able chemist, Doctor Hugo Schweitzer, in The Popular Science Monthly, realized that two great dangers might arise. from these applications of saltpeter. In time of war the importation of saltpeter might be stopped by the navy of a foreign nation and it might, therefore, become impossible to manufacture nitric acid and explosives. The feeding of the nation might be interfered with, inasmuch as the soil could not be properly fertilized and hence could not produce enough foodstuffs. Therefore it became imperative that the nation must become independent of the importation of saltpeter. The problem was solved by the utilization of nitrogen from the