Page:The Scientific Monthly vol. 3.djvu/178

 172 THE SCIENTIFIC MOiNTHLY

La vie eat done un tourbUlon plus ou moiua rapide, plua ou mo dont la direction eat cotutante, et qui entratne toujoura dei molte Bortes, mais oii lee mol^ulea imjividuelles entreat et d'oit elle: tinuellement, de mani^re que la forme du corps vivaat lui est plua aa mature.

Chsuioal CoupoeiTiON or Celobophyli.

Carbon

Hydrogen

Nitrogen

Phoaphorua

Magnesium

��The green coloring matter of plants is known as chic chemical composition according to Hoppe-Seyler'a analj: here.'^ Potaflsiuni is essential for its assimilating activity. accompanied by manganese) although essential to the pi chlorophyll ia not contained in it. The chlorophyll-bearij the plant in the presence of sunlight separate the oxygen the carbon and hydrogen atoms in the molecules of car (CO,) and of water (H^O), storing up the energy of the h; carbon in the carbohydrate substances of the plant, an enei

���F'la. 1. Cdbv:

��stored by deoxidation and which can be released only throu tion. Thus the celluloses, sugars, starches, and other similai which deposit their kinetic energy in the tissues of the pi that energy through the addition of oxygen, the amount required being the same as that needed to bum similar substi air to the same degree; in brief, a combustion which genei Thus living matter utilizes the energy of the sun to draw a stream of electric energy from the elements in the earth, and the atmosphere.

This was the first step in the interpretation of life procf

��u SachB, JuliuB, 1882, p. 7 ••W. J. Gies.

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