Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-12-29

airy between animal and vegetable life It
has been demonstrated that all organic
! tissue is-built up Of cells, that is. Of ''bits
| OF protoplasm supplied with a nucleus"
| and 1t Is generally accepted among biolo-
g1sts that the protoplasm is for all pur-
poses identical in plants and animals that
1t Is the physical basis of life and that
| every cell springs from another cell. The
synthesis Of organic products from chem
ical elements In the laboratory demolished
| the theory of vital force and proved
| that only natural elements enter into the
| composition of animal matter.
| The boundary is set aside, too. in the
the globe. The theory of evolution, the
| transmutation of one species from
| other by added characteristics, and the
| common origin in one original form adj
minds since Charles Darwin. in 1853. in
his Origin of Species by Natural Seec-
| tion, demonstrated the variations in spe
| cies and pointed out their causes. 1t has
| become impossible to believe in q special
| creation of man, belief against which
the biologists, as we'll, have accumulated
| evidence. The theory Of cataclysmal
A., changes In the earth's surface has been
| abandoned. In the past. as In the present
| changes were gradual and must have gone
| on through cons of time: the fossil ami
mails whose remains are found in the rocks
| died out as species die nowadays. There
| was time when there was life, as the
| ice covered the earth, then low organisms
| were born that In ages became the great
/ d.
Perhaps the most marked characteristic
| of scientific research in the nineteenth CEN
| fury has been its study of the infinitely lit
| tie 1t has been an age of inconcevably
| minute and accurate measurements. Each
! branch of science has turned. microscope
| or spectorscope to seek for some primal
| cause. the atom the moecule, the cell, the
| microbe, the number of lines in the spec
| trum, the number of vibrations of light or
! of heat. The micrometer has played the
| part that the mariners compass did in the
age of discoveries. The parallax of a star
has been measured and the speed in which
| it moves, and the size and velocity of a
| molecule Of gas have been computed.
Fruitful Years.
The first years of the century were eX-
J tra ordinarily fruitful. Young, by means of
| the spectrum, gave the first convincing
proof Of the undulatory theory of light and
| conceived the idea of luminous ther'' in
which the vibrations occur Since then
| heat, electricity, magnetism, chemical af-
| fnity, have all been shown TO be likewise
merely forms Of vibrating motion in the
ether, whose existence as an elastic. rigid
incompressibe, frictioness solid filing all
space Is now generally accepted Dy physi-
clans. Daltons theory of unchangeapla
atoms and his first table of atomic weights
provided that basis of exactness on which
modern chemistry has been built, and the
properties of the atoms were rapidly de-
fined, thus opening the path for exl eriment
| in countless combinations. Volta's pile ap-
peared In the last year of the eighteenth
century, and with 1t Davy reduced chemi-
cal substances so thoroughly that none OF
the elements he obtained have been ,fecom-
posed since, and also produced the electric
light. Soon after Oersted discovered cleo
tromagnetfsm, which quickly gave the ideas
OF the telegraph and the motor, while Fres-
mel discovered the poiarisation of light AMI
the first asteroids were detected by astron-
onlers.
Astronomical Research.
The middle Of the century was marked
by great mathematical feat the discov-
cry of the planet Neptune by Crouch
Adams and Leverr!er independently. The
invention Of photography, later employed
systematically in astronomy, made it pos
s!ble to detect celestial objects too faint
for human eye.~to See. while Kirchofr and
Bunsen's spectroscope and the methods of
spectrum analysis, besides the services
they rendered to chemistry and physics,
enabled the chemical composition of the
celestial bodies to be determined and proved
the identity in substance of the earth with
the sun and stars. By their aid. too, the
distance Of the stars can be determined
and the presence and course of invisible
stars has been found. To the middle of
the century belongs the enunciation of the
most important law of matter since New
tons law Of gravitation. the law Of the con-
servatlon of energy. the doctrine namely,
l0dl 10 CREATE OF dIlllHllote energy IS as
impossible as to create or annihilate mat
ter; and that all the phenomena Of the
material universe consist In transforma
tons Of energy alone. Almost discovered
more than once earlier in the century, It |
was arrived at independently by several |
experimenters, chief among whom were |
Joule, who had previously demonstrated
the law of the mechanical equivalent OF
heat, and Julius Mayer, the originator OF
the "meteoric hypothesis
Later have come Clerk MaxwelTs kinetic |
theory Of gases, the liquefaction of all
gases by intense cold and the approach to |
the absolute zero: HertZs Interrupted eec |
trio waves, which have yielded wireless |
telegraphy; Roentgens discovery Of the |
cathode rays, which have rendered the in |
terror Of opaque objects visible, and the |
periodic law in chemistry. |
A curious trait In all the sciences has |
been the expectation or hope of the dis |
covery of some first cause, like the idea In |
chemistry that the elements may yet be |
decomposed and some one element at The |
root Of all be found, or in biology the |
search for the first common element Of life. |
Geographical Work.
The achievements In geographical ex-
plorations would alone have given glory to
a century less wonderful The one nau-
teal problem that Captain Cook did not |