20 PROTOPLASM. 



earning the nature of which much difference of opinion is 

 entertained. From the protoplasm of the amoeba and 

 certain forms of foraminifera. we pass to larger and more 

 extended masses of this substance, included under the head 

 of "urschleim," and constituting the organisms of the 

 simplest animated beings, which have been included by 

 Hseckel in the genus Moner. I refer to this part of my 

 subject with diffidence, for I have not given much attention 

 to it. It would, however, be wrong to omit all mention of 

 what is at the same time very interesting and of great 

 importance. I shall therefore quote the observations of 

 others so far as they appear to me to bear upon the con- 

 sideration of the nature of protoplasm. 



In the " Microscopical Journal" for October, 1868, is a 

 memoir by Professor Huxley " On some Organisms living 

 at great Depths in the North Atlantic Ocean," in which he 

 states that the stickiness of the deep-sea mud is due to 

 " innumerable lumps of a transparent gelatinous substance," 

 each lump consisting of granules, coccoliths, and foreign 

 bodies, imbedded in a "transparent, colourless, and struc- 

 tureless matrix." The granules form heaps which are some- 

 times the ToVoth of an inch or more in diameter. The 

 "granule" is a rounded or oval disc, which is stained 

 yellow by iodine, and is dissolved by acetic acid. " The 

 granule heaps and the transparent gelatinous matter in 

 which they are embedded represent masses of protoplasm." 

 One of the masses of this deep-sea "urschleim" may be 

 regarded as a new form of the simplest animated beings 

 (Moner}, and Huxley proposes to call it Bathybius. The 

 " Discolithi and the Cyatholithi? some of which resemble 



