The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-12-30

all organic tissue is built up of cells.
that is, of bits of p~rOtOplasm supplied
with a nucleus" and it is generally
accepted among biologists that the
prOtOplasm is for all purposes identi-
cal in plants and animals, that it is the
physical basis of life. and that every
cell springs from another cell The
Synthesis of organic products from
chemical elements in the laboratory de-
mOiished the theory of a vital force,
and proved that only natural elements
enter into the composition of animal
matter.
Changes by the Evolution Theory.
The boundary is set aside, too, in the
century's answer to the problem Of life
on the globe. The theory of evolution,
the transmutation of one species from
another by added characteristics. and
the common origin in one original form,
advanced by Lamarck, has satisfied
mems minds since Charles Darwin, in
1868, in his Origin of Species by Nat
uTal Selection" demonstrated the vaTi-
atoms in species and pointed out their
causes. 1t has become impossible to
believe in a special creation of man
a belief against which the biologists
as well have accumulated evidence.
The theory of CataClysmal changes in
the earth's surface has been aban-
dOned. In the past. as in the present,
CAdlSCS NeAG lduucllr anu must nave
gone on through aeons of time; the fos-
sill animals whose remains are found
in the rocks died cut as species die
nowadays. There was a time when
there was no life, as the ice covered
the earth, then low organisms were
born that in ages became the great
mammals of the latest strata.
Studying the Things of Nature.
Perhaps the most marked character
istic of scientific research in the nine
tenth century has been its study of
the infinitely little. 1t has been an age
Z of inconceiVably minute and accurate
T mGd- Urements. Zach branch of science
has turned, microscope OF Spectro5cOpe,
to seek for some primal cause, the
atom, h m~OleCuie, the cell, the mi
cTcbe, the number of lines in the spec
tTum, the number of vibrations of light
/ or of heat. The micrCmeter has played
the part that the mariners compass
did in The age Of discoveries. The par
/ allaX of a star has been measured and
the speed in which IT moves and the
ziZe and velocity of a mOlecule of gas
have been computed
The first years OF the century were
extraordinarily fruitful. Young, by
mean of the spectrum, gave the first
/ convincing proof of the undUlatOTy
theory of light and conceived the idea
Of a luminous ether in which the vi
bratiOns occur Since then heat, cleo
trIcity. magnetism, chemical affinity,
have all beer shown to be likewise
merely forms of vibrating motion in the
: ether. whose existence as an elastic,
rigid. inCOmpressible, frictiOnlesS solid
filing all space is now genel ally &C
cepted by physicists. DaIton's theory
Of Interchangeable atoms and his first
table of atomic weights provided that
basis of eXactneSs on which modern
chemistry has been built, and the prop
critics of the atoms were rapidly de-
fined. thus opening the path for exper-
iment in countless combinations. Vol
as pile appeared in the last year OF
the eighteenth century, and with II
Davy reduced chemical substances SO
thoroughly that lone Of the elements
he obtained have been decOmDoseC
since. and also produced the electric
light. Soon after Oersted discovered
eIectro-magnetism, which quickly gave
the ideas of the telegraph and mo.
tor. while Fresnel discovered the polar