And the life of the plant? What is it, and why
is this protoplasm always active and busy? I
cannot tell you. Study as we may, the life of
the tiny plant is as much a mystery as your life and
mine. It came, like all things, from the bosom
of the Great Father, but we cannot tell how it came
nor what it is. We can see the active grains
moving under the microscope, but we cannot see the
power that moves them. We only know it is a power
given to the plant, as to you and to me, to enable
it to live its life, and to do its useful work in
the world.
LECTURE VIII
I have here a piece of coal (Fig. 45), which, though
it has been cut with some care so as to have a smooth
face, is really in no other way different from any
ordinary lump which you can pick for yourself out
of the coal-scuttle. Our work to-day is to relate
the history of this black lump; to learn what it is,
what it has been, and what it will be.
It looks uninteresting enough at first sight, and
yet if we examine it closely we shall find some questions
to ask even about its appearance. Look at the
smooth face of this specimen and see if you can explain
those fine lines which run across so close together
as to look like the edges of the leaves of a book.
Try to break a piece of coal, and you will find that
it will split much more easily along those lines than
across the other way of the lump; and if you wish
to light a fire quickly you should always put this
lined face downwards so that the heat can force its
way up through these cracks and gradually split up
the block. Then again if you break the coal carefully
along one of these lines you will find a fine film
of charcoal lying in the crack, and you will begin
to suspect that this black coal must have been built
up in very thin layers, with a kind of black dust between
them.
The next thing you will call to mind is that this
coal burns and gives flame and heat, and that this
means that in some way sunbeams are imprisoned in
it; lastly, this will lead you to think of plants,
and how they work up the strength of the sunbeams
into their leaves, and hide black carbon in even the
purest and whitest substance they contain.
Is coal made of burnt plants, then? Not burnt
ones, for if so it would not burn again; but you may
have read how the makers of charcoal take wood and
bake it without letting it burn, and then it turns
black and will afterwards make a very good fire; and
so you will see that it is probable that our piece
of coal is made of plants which have been baked and
altered, but which have still much sunbeam strength
bottled up in them, which can be set free as they
burn.
If you will take an imaginary journey with me to a
coal-pit near Newcastle, which I visited many years
ago, you will see that we have very good evidence
that coal is made of plants, for in all coal-mines
we find remains of them at every step we take.
