THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 467 



was a long and broader filament bearing at its distal 

 extremity a large aggregation of more than 100 spores, 

 quite naked, and very similar in character to those 

 from which the mycelial thread arose. This plant was 

 evidently a Penicillium^ quite similar to what had been 

 obtained from other ammonic tartrate and sodic phos- 

 phate solutions 1 . The delicate flocculi that first made 



1 I have ascertained that the life of this particular fungus is destroyed 

 by exposure for a few minutes to the influence of boiling water. Placed 

 even in a mere corked flask, containing an ammonic tartrate solution, 

 the boiled fungus does not grow, whilst an unboiled specimen will slowly 

 increase and grow in all directions. (The extremely slow growth of the 

 fungus in this solution is very remarkable, when compared with the 

 rapidity with which other minute fungi increase in organic solutions.) 

 A specimen which had been boiled for 5" was kept under observation 

 for nearly three months, and it showed not the slightest signs of growth. 

 Mere exposure to the influence of boiling water for a few minutes suffices 

 to break up and disperse such heads of fructification as are represented 

 in Fig. 38, and also to produce some amount of disorganization of the 

 filaments. How much more, therefore, does it seem likely that an 

 exposure to 1 46-1 5 3 C for four hours, should prove destructive even to 

 mere organic forms ? With the view of answering this question, I placed 

 a quantity of a small fungus, consisting of mycelial filaments and multi- 

 tudes of spores (closely resembling, although not quite so delicate as 

 those which were met with in the saline mixtures), into a solution, of the 

 same strength as that which had been previously employed, of tartrate 

 of ammonia and phosphate of soda in distilled water, and then handed 

 it over to Dr. Frankland with the request that he would kindly treat this 

 in the same way as he had done the other solutions. Accordingly, 

 on May n, a vacuum having been produced within the flask before it 

 was hermetically sealed, the solution was submitted in the s ime digester 

 to a temperature of 146-1 53 C for four hours. When taken from 

 the digester, the previously whitish mass of fungus filaments and spores 

 had assumed a decidedly brownish colour, and it was in great part 

 converted into mere debris. On the following morning the flask was 

 broken, and some of the remains of the fungus and its spores were 



H h 2 



