The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1913-07-10

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artificial or natural?"
This question opens up rare field
for discussion.
Both heat and light are required for
plant development. Which has the
greater force is difficult to decide,
but a plant would live longer in total
darkness without heat than in cold
absolute, but in light.
| The problem of white light shining
on plants is a very ancient one; but
the dispersion of white, sun or electric
arc light into long spectrum, where
the constituent colors are separated
! out and then allowed successfully to
fall on plants, is modern, of great in
terest and by no means yet fully I'M
derstood.
Suppose that we have plants that
can move, not fixed by roots. Thus,
| whatever bacteria are, whether plants
! or animals, they are perhaps more
nearly related to the vegetable than to
the animal kingdom. And this point is
not clearly determined; the line of d.
vision is so irregular that it is not
| fully located.
others comparatively still. Some have
| cilia-delicate, hairlike appendages-
and these enable them to move. The
| microscopic objects move and live and
have their being in drop of water.
REACT UNDER COLOR.
Place drop on a thin glass plate,
| lay another plate on this, flatten the
| drop, put the glasses under a high
power microscope and view all in
range of vision with white light direct
| from sun or arc. All will be normal.
Now place a prism between sun or arc
in the beam of light, separate it into
| long band of colors and allow these
to fall on the cityful of moving inhab-
itants. Some will not change, but they
are mostly white. Others contain a
| purple coloring matter. These react to
light, act, absorb carbonic acid gas
and emit oxygen.
Placed in the darkness this process
stops. Cut off light from the drop,
admit a tiny ray, then the bacteria will
| leave the darkness and cluster in the
| light. But they have no eyes, nerves or
! organs.
Behold this mystery. They become
aware of the existence of the light -
| means unknown to science. The won
| der is this: Is light a chemical? Cut
off the lighted area and they all swim
away This all in white light. Now
| turn on the spectrum. At once there is
! a hurrying toward the bright red;
they do not stop, they enter dull red.
No rest there; they pass beyond and
congregate in the infra-red in a region
of radiant energy invisible to the hui.
man eye.
But great numbers collect in the
yellow-orange part of the band of col
ors. Few go to green and blue, and
none to violet or beyond.
ENERGY WAVES.
Careful research showed that in
those beyond the red more carbon was
| stored and oxygen liberated than in
those in the orange-yellow. Beyond the
red, then, energy waves invisible to
human eyes can be seen" or sensed,
or utilized, by these bacteria. But I'LL
tra-violet waves, also invisible to hui
| mans, make imprint on silver mole
cules and thus photograph.
| Chlorophyll is the green coloring
matter in plants. This is acted upon
! in a remarkable manner by light ener-
gy-stimulated into greater produc-
! ton and liberation of oxygen. But
cells in the larger plants all liberate
! oxygen; therefore in these bacteria
under the microscope the observer
peers into natures labyrinths.
! No clue as to what life is, however,
has been detected. But since nature
does not break up light into these gor-
geous colors of the spectrum, but uses
white light, the growth of plants ap-
pears to depend mainly on energy
waves that We cannot see