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Show "AN ATTRACTION PARTICLE." Interesting Disclosures Made at the Co vention of the British, Association. The annual disclosure of the latesl discoveries in various branches of science being made at the convention of the British association, Oxford, is an interesting inter-esting budget. Lord Salisbury's address at the opening of the conference attracts at-tracts widespread attention. He pro claimed himself a scientific agnostic, but the most remarkable feature of his paper was his outlining of the marvels of unsolved problems to which modern 6cience is now devoting itself. He paid a sympathetic tribute to Darwin's great work, but refused " to acknowledge the jellyfish as Ms ancestor on any evidence yet offered. Ho attacked Weissmann's theory of natural selection in evolution and affirmed that the present day has brought a return to the belief that creative crea-tive design was supreme. It has been in these meetings of tht several divisions of the conventioa-that the latest discoveries and theories have been presented. A year ago the biologists, biolo-gists, who Lad believed for years that they were on the point of solving the mystery of life., acknowledged them selves baffled. Now Professor Schaefer, president of the section of physiology, aim ounces the discovery in each tiny animal veil containing life of what ha terms ,4an attraction particJa " It should be remembered that when the biologists discovered the cell principle of life they thought it impossible to subdivide thes infinitely small atoms, but the micro-ecope micro-ecope has shown the existence of this 6mall particle in each cell, which is itself a structure 6ui generis, having a definite existenoe and a definite function 5? its own. It is almost as minute ao object as it is possible to conceive. In a cell which is magnified 1,000 diameters diame-ters the central particle appears merely of the size of a pin point. Yet this &1 most infinitely small object exerts an extraordinary influence over the whole cell, which may be many thousand times I Us Eize. It initiates and directs those i processes w hich result in the multiplication multipli-cation of cells, and indixectly therefore It is concerned in directing the goneral growth of the individual and ultimately ultimate-ly the propagation of species. It ih shown, then, that the principle of life is contained in a particle 1,000 times smaller than the smallest object which the best microscopes of a few years ago were able to perceive, and the latest name for the unsolved mystery of life is "an attraction particle. Nev Yci Eua's London lUat |