But with a power of
analytical chemistry they separate what they want and appropriate it to
their majestic growths. But how is material conveyed from rootlet to
veinlet of leaf hundreds of feet away? The great tree is more full of
channels of communication than Venice or Stockholm is of canals, and it
is along these watery ways of commerce that the material is conveyed.
These channels are a succession of cells that act like locks, set for
the perpendicular elevation of the freight. The tiny boats run day and
night in the season, and though it is dark within, and though there are
a thousand piers, no freight that starts underground for a leaf is ever
landed on the way for bark or woody fiber. Freight never goes astray,
nor are express packages miscarried. What starts for bark, leaf,
fiber, seed, is deposited as bark, leaf, fiber, seed, and nothing else.
There are hundreds of miles of canals, but every boat knows where to
land its unmarked freight. Curious as is this work underground, that
in the upper air is more so. The tree builds most of its solid
substance from the mobile and tenuous air. Trees are largely condensed
air. By the magic chemistry of the sunshine and vegetable life the
tree breathes through its myriad leaves and extracts carbon to be built
into wood. Had we the same power to extract fuel from the air we need
not dig for coal.
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