PLANT LIFE.

Shannon News, 23 May 1924, Page 4

PLANT LIFE.

AN INDIAN STUDY. LONDON, "February 15. By special invitation of Lord Olivier, Sir J. C. Rose, F.R.S., gave a lecture at the India Office. There was u remarkable, audience including the Prime Minister, Lord H'ardinge (exViceroy), and Mr Bernard Shaw, with Lord Olivier presiding. Dr. Bose spoke upon his own special subjects—the measurement of. the lite and growth and reactions of plants, and the close analogy between all forms of organic and even Ql inorganic matter. He told how lie began upon his line of research- in caJU outta more Hum thirty years ago ami had there created an apparatus which, with - a magnifjii'ng power of fifty million times, could trace t»e growth of plants by diagram and the effects of stimulation upon their organism. He had also been able to show the effect of fatigue upon crystals and motals. He httd even revealed in the behaviour of metals the lethargy that comes from idleness, the-torpor from the absence of stimulus, exactly corresponding to the effects of fatiguie or of idleness in man.

As t!ie Prime Minister said, in speaking after the lecture, one has seen Dr. Bose make'a bar of iron so exhilarated that it staggered like a drunken man.

The chief experiment-was made by an apparatus which exactly measured the amount of carbonic acid taken in by a water plant as food. By instruments of amazing delicacy the bubbles of oxygen given out from'the plant recorded themselves at intervals one by one, making a tiny mark upon a moving drum and also ringing a bell as they rose. If the plant was disturbed or hurt the intervals became longer, showing .that the plant was "off its feed." In the early morning and late evening the intervals became .very long .also, while thev were short \vith dots close together about midday, which proved that the, plant was '* most hungry at lunch time, as probably most healthy human beings are. Diajgflaims also showed the delay of assimilation by planfts owing to shock and the eagerness O'f a. plant's appetite after normal rest from perturbation, whence Dr. Bose drew a moral for statesmen. He further told of the circulation of fluid in a plant by t pumping action similar to the work of the human heart, or the reactions to poisons and ajnaestbjetics, _which his instruments can register and of the sudden shiver that passes oiver a plant as it dies or feels the "death throes-"