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NEWSCIENCENEWSCIENCENEWSCIENCE the retort. At this point, Crosse realised he scientist Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose. Like would reflect a light beam, by way of a had forgotten to place in the retort a resting Crosse, Bose did not fare well with the sci- small mirror, to a screen many yards away. place for the insect, and before long it fell entific academia and much of his work was The resultant movements of this focused back into the acid and disappeared! He ignored and disregarded. This was the beam would equal an amplification of expressed his amazement that in a solution same man who, in 1895, held a scientific movement in the order of "ten million so caustic, a creature could be born! demonstration in the Calcutta town hall, magnifications". Crosse thoughtfully summarised his presided over by the Lieutenant-Governor Bose was able to show by his device how observations of his previous experiments _ of Bengal, Sir Alexander Mackenzie. animals, plants and metals when subjected with the Acari. He found that: During this demonstration, Bose, with to external stimuli gave exactly the same * The first appearance of the Acari con- his "metallic coherer", transmitted radio reactions. When metals and plants were sists in "a very minute whitish hemisphere" waves from the lecture hall through several doused with chloroform and other stupefy- which forms upon the surface of the electri- intervening walls to another room, a total ing drugs, their movements, amplified by fied substance. Sometimes it appears at the of 75 feet away, where a relay was tripped, the device, would exhibit similar reactions positive end and sometimes at the neg- to the effects of general anaesthesia ative, occasionally between the two or normally exhibited in animal life. And in the middle of the electrified current, when fire was introduced, both plant and sometimes upon all. and mineral registered the trauma of ¢ After a few days, the speck pain, followed by, if kept in the flame, enlarges and begins to elongate verti- a sudden rapid shuddering, followed cally and begins shooting out fila- by the stillness or straight line of ments of a whitish wavy appearance, death! The subjects exhibited similar which can be easily seen through a responses to poisons, acids and other lens of very low power. excitation. * Then begins the first appearance of One wonders, in the light of all the life. If a sharp point is placed near above information, if the scientific these filaments, says Crosse, they establishment may have been a little immediately shrink up and collapse premature in dismissing the theory of "like zoophytes upon moss", but abiogenesis—the creation of life from expand again after its removal. non-living matter. * Some days afterwards, these fila- It would go a long way if someone ments become legs and bristles and a were to try to duplicate some or all of perfect Acarus electricus is the result. the experiments performed by It finally detaches itself from its birth- Crosse—which, if nothing else, would place, and if under the fluid it climbs at least bring the matter to a conclusion up the electrified wire and eventually one way or the other. escapes from the vessel. If one of _ The last word, in all fairness, must them is later thrown back into the fluid avi N crenuics (not to scale), from a craw go to Crosse: in which it was produced, it is imme- - M. Noad!s Lectures on Electricity (London, ) To create is to form a something diately drowned. out of nothing. To annihilate is to Crosse also mentions never having heard _ throwing a heavy iron ball into the air, a reduce that something to a nothing. of Acari being produced under a fluid, or of _ pistol was fired and a small mine was deto- Both of these, of course, can only be their ova throwing out filaments, or of ever nated. (All this happened while Marconi the attributes of the Almighty. having observed any ova previous to or _ (the acknowledged discoverer of radio) was Ironically Crosse, somewhat like his during "electrisation, except when anum- in Bologna, still trying to transmit electrical Acari, died in the same room where he was ber of these insects in a perfect state con- waves without wires. He would not be born. He died on 6 July 1855 at the age of gregate, ova are produced." granted his patent for wire-less transmis- _ seventy-one years. oo The only acknowledgement ever afford- sion of electric waves for at least another ed to Crosse from the scientific establish- year.) For further information or discussion: ment came in the form of a paper from It was during work on his metallic coher- contact John Mount, 41-45 Fiddlewood Faraday, read at the Royal Institute. He er that Bose noticed that after prolonged Court, Woodford, Qld 4514, Australia, stated that similar appearances had present- use his coherer became less sensitive, but _ telephone +61 (0)7 5496 3073. ed themselves during the course of his own after a period of non-use it somehow reju- experiments, but he was undecided whether _venated itself. Bose commenced experi- References they should be regarded as "a case of pro- ments into metal fatigue and eventually Gould, Rupert T., Oddities: A Book of duction or revivification". developed a device which he called a — Unexplained Facts, P. Allen & Co., Apparently the thin line between animal, Crescograph. It was as brilliant in its use London, 1928 mineral and vegetable can sometimes as it was in its simplicity. The mainstay of | * Tompkins, Peter, The Secret Life of become a little blurred. this instrument was a simple "optical Plants, Penguin, Middlesex, 1974 Another little-known pioneer of science lever": when some slight invisible move- + Tromp, S. W., Psychical Physics, who dared cross this line was the Indian _ ment was applied to one end, the other end _ Elsevier Publishing Co., London, 1949 Acarus electricus (not to scale), from a drawing in H. M. Noad's Lectures on Electricity (London, 1849) seventy-one years. For further information or discussion: contact John Mount, 41-45 Fiddlewood Court, Woodford, Qld 4514, Australia, telephone +61 (0)7 5496 3073. References - Gould, Rupert T., Oddities: A Book of Unexplained Facts, P. Allen & Co., London, 1928 = Tompkins, Peter, The Secret Life of Plants, Penguin, Middlesex, 1974 = Tromp, S. W., Psychical Physics, Elsevier Publishing Co., London, 1949 APRIL —- MAY 1999 NEXUS = 61