y touched the fringe of the mysterious
realm which envelops man.

Burbank, of the spineless cactus and new fruits, who has been delving
deep into the mysteries, tells us:

The facts of plant life demand a kinetic theory of evolution, a
slight change from Huxley's statement that, "Matter is a
magazine of force," to that of matter being force alone. The
time will come when the theory of "ions" will be thrown aside,
and no line left between force and matter.

Professor Matthews, he who, with Professor Loeb at Wood's Hole, is
imparting life to sea-urchins through electrical reactions, declares
"that certain chemical substances coming together under certain
conditions are bound to produce life. All life comes through the
operation of universal laws." We are but young in all this mysterious
business. What lies behind and probably near at hand may not merely
revolutionise material agencies but human preconceptions as well. "There
are more things in Heaven and Earth than are ever dreamt of in your
Philosophy."

Latent Heat was a find indeed, but there remained another discovery yet
to make. Watt found that no less than four-fifths of all the steam used
was lost in heating the cold cylinder, and only one-fifth performed
service by acting on the piston. Prevent this, and the power of the
giant is increased fourfold. Here was the prize to contend for. Win this
and the campaign is won. First then, what caused the loss? This was soon
determined. The cylinder was necessarily cooled at the top because it
was open to the air, and also cooled below in condensing the charge of
steam that had driven the piston up in order to create a vacuum, without
which the piston would not descend from top to bottom, to begin another
upward stroke. A jet of cold water was introduced to effect this. How to
surmount this seemingly insuperable obstacle was the problem that kept
Watt long in profound study.

Many plans were entertained, only to be finally rejected. At last the
flash came into that teeming brain like a stroke of lightning. Eureka!
he had found it. Not one scintilla of doubt ever intruded thereafter.
The solution lay right there and he would invent the needed appliances.
His mode of procedure, when on the trail of big game, is beautifully
illustrated here. When he found the root of the defect which rendered
the Newcomen engine impracticable for general purposes, he promptly
formulated the one indispensable condition