Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/685

Rh wave length, the laws governing the dispersion of the light are simple. Tyndall pursued the investigation to the case where the particles have grown beyond the limit above indicated, and found that the polarization of the dispersed light was effected in a peculiar and interesting manner.

Atmospheric dust, especially in London, is largely organic. If, following Tyndall, we hold a spirit lamp under the track of the light from the electric lamp, the dark spaces, resulting from the combustion of the dust, have all the appearance of smoke.

In confined and undisturbed spaces the dust settles out. I have here a large flask which has been closed for some days. If I hold it to the lamp, the track of the light, plainly visible before entering and after leaving the flask, is there interrupted. This, it will be evident, is a matter of considerable importance in connection with organic germs.

The question of the spontaneous generation of life occupied Tyndall for several years. He brought to bear upon it untiring perseverance and refined experimental skill, and his results are those now generally accepted. Guarding himself from too absolute statements as to other times and other conditions, he concluded that under the circumstances of our experiments life is always founded upon life. The putrefaction of vegetable and animal infusions, even when initially sterilized, is to be attributed to the intrusion of organic germs from the atmosphere.

The universal presence of such germs is often regarded as a hypothesis difficult of acceptance. It may be illustrated by an experiment from the inorganic world. I have here, and can project upon the screen, glass pots, each containing a shallow layer of a supersaturated solution of sulphate of soda. Protected by glass covers, they have stood without crystallizing for forty-eight hours. But if I remove the cover, a few seconds or minutes will see the crystallization commence. It has begun, and long needles are invading the field of view. Here it must be understood that with a few exceptions, the crystalline germ required to start the action must be of the same nature as the dissolved salt; and the conclusion is that small crystals of sulphate of soda are universally present in the atmosphere.

I have now completed my task. With more or less success I have laid before you the substance of some of Tyndall's contributions to knowledge. What I could not hope to recall was the brilliant and often poetic exposition by which his vivid imagination illumined the dry facts of science. Some reminiscences of this may still be recovered by the reader of his treatises and memoirs; but much survives only as an influence exerted upon the minds of his contemporaries, and manifested in subsequent advances due to his inspiration.