74 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



unlike the flakes of silica found in the previous 

 experiments; and if my examinations had been 

 limited to it the results with these tubes would 

 have been comparatively unsatisfactory. It con- 

 tained many strange and interesting things, in the 

 form of concretions mixed with granules of dif- 

 ferent kinds and hyaline crumpled membranes, 

 though only an organism here and there in some 

 of the deposits. 



But as in the case of some of the yellow solu- 

 tions in which there was scarcely any deposit I 

 had previously used the centrifuge, so now, after 

 having removed as much as possible of the floccu- 

 lent deposit with a sterilised pipette, I shook up 

 the fluid rather briskly, so as to dislodge any 

 organisms that might be adhering to the glass at 

 the bottom of the tube. 1 The fluid was then 

 poured into the tube of the centrifuge, and after 

 its action all was removed with a pipette, except 

 about the last two minims. The examination of 

 them has in each case revealed Torulse, or Torulas 

 and Bacteria in more or less abundance, with here 

 and there an incipient mycelium. 



All these tubes, but especially those that had 



1 What was found in tube No. 178, and is recorded in the 

 next section, made such a procedure seem desirable. 



