Page 59 - My FlipBook

a proper comparison of the relation in size between the cells
or rods formed by the mold and the micro-organism. There
is a difference of more than ten times in the size between
the two. The micro-organisms are the smallest plants known
to us. Many of them are simply round forms and I am
puzzled often to know how to represent the vastness of their
littleness. Take a lead pencil, sharpen it fairly well, made a
dot upon paper, and then imagine that you can take up
micro-organisms one by one, count them and lay them
down side by side, and it will take a thousand of them to
make a row across that dot. Now can you appreciate the
vastness of their littleness? Yet, these will multiply with
great rapidity; one will divide into two, it is computed, on
an average about once per hour, but often much more rap-
idly. Now, some of you calculate for a moment and see if
you can tell how many will be produced from a single one
in twenty-four hours. Little as they are, they will form a
considerable mass, sometimes in twenty-four hours, by the
rapiditv of their division.