272 Dr. Brandes's Examination of a gelatinous Substance 



Indeed he does not decide whether its origin was terrestrial 

 or not; yet he asserts that this substance could be neither a 

 plant nor an animal, (at least not an entire one,) but perhaps 

 the produce of an animal, an excretion resembling gum$ mu«- 

 cus, &c. ; and although he does not deny the possibility of such 

 a body having descended from the atmosphere, he does not 

 think it very probable. Nay, he does not much object even to 

 the comparison of this slimy substance with the manna of the 

 Israelites, which fell from heaven ;-^he thinks at least that this 

 slimy mass might be as nourishing as oysters. However in- 

 clined I may feel to agree with my respected friend on the 

 first two points ; viz. that this mass might originate from the 

 excretion of an animal, or a gelatinous meteor, the idea of com- 

 paring it with the manna of the Israelites seems to me un- 

 tenable, there being too great a difference between both the 

 nature of the substances and the places in which they have 

 been found. I was much inclined to ascribe to the substance 

 in question an atmospheric origin, in consequence of the want 

 of organic structure, which M. Buchner ascribes to the mass 

 he examined ; in consequence also of the account given by 

 R. Graves of a fiery meteor which had fallen in Massa- 

 chusetts, in the United States, in a spot where the following 

 morning a gelatinous substance was found*; in consequence, 

 moreover, of my own observations on the existence of atoms 

 of azotized substances in the atmosphere, at least in rain-water, 

 (Jahrb. 1826, iii. 253); and ultimately from the account fre- 

 quently repeated to me by a soldier of the contingent of 

 Lippe, who had fought in the Peninsula, of his having fre- 

 quently noticed in Spain, while on duty during cold nights, 

 stars to shoot, and perceived in the morning in damp places, 

 where he thought them to have fallen, white gelatinous masses, 

 which were soon decomposed ; an opinion which I also men- 

 tioned in my treatise on Rain-water. 



M. Schwabe, an apothecary at Dessau, published some 

 time after a treatise on the same subject (Kastner's Arc/iiv. vii. 

 p. 428), on his having had an opportunity of examining a sub- 

 stance which had been found in a damp meadow, which was 

 likewise gelatinous and of a green colour. Mr. S. recog- 

 nised this mass distinctly asNostoc commune Vauch. (Tremella 

 ?iostoc, Linn.), having discovered in it through the microscope 

 the structure of this singular nostoc: As this mass agreed not 

 only in its external form and place of discovery with that of 

 Buchner, but also in its chemical composition, Mr. S. thought 

 himself justified in assuming that both this substance and that 



* Gilbert's Annalen, Ixxi. 314. 



of 



