A PARTNERSHIP OF ANIMAL AND PLANT LIFE. 835 



the saline masses that exist in the interior of our globe. Whenever 

 waters of infiltration reach these saline deposits, they dissolve more or 

 less considerable quantities of them, and, when they come out again 

 into the light, they constitute what are called saline mineral waters. 







A PARTNERSHIP OF ANIMAL AND PLANT LIFE. 



By K. BKANDT. 



THE fundamental difference in the feeding of plants and animals 

 is conditioned on the presence or absence of chlorophyl. Green 

 plants are competent to assimilate inorganic matter by means of the 

 chlorophyl-bodies in their leaves, while animals require organic sub- 

 stances for food. Were this difference mere comprehensive, it would 

 incontestably be regarded as the most important of all the differences 

 between the two classes of organisms. But there are, on the one 

 hand, plants that have no chlorophyl the fungi ; and, on the other 

 hand, animals which have been known for a considerable time to con- 

 tain chlorophyl, as the fresh- water sponge (Spongilla), the hydra, sev- 

 eral gyrating moners, and many infusorise and rhizopods. 



The fungi feed, like animals, on organic matters ; but it is not yet 

 sufficiently established whether the so-called chlorophyl-bearing ani- 

 mals can be nourished entirely after the fashion of real plants, by the 

 assimilation of inorganic matter ; or, in other words, whether, with an 

 abundant access of air and suitable lighting, they can live in filtered 

 water. Before we can approach this question more closely, however, 

 we must decide another equally important one, whether the chloro- 

 phyl-bodies present in the animals are really elementary parts, mor- 

 phologically corresponding with vegetable chlorophyl produced by 

 the animals themselves, or whether they are not unicellular vegetable 

 organisms parasitic in the animals in other words, it must be decided 

 whether the green bodies in animals are parts of cells or are them- 

 selves cells ; whether they are morphologically and physiologically 

 dependent on the tissue in which they appear, or independent of it. 



Morphological investigation has been pursued upon hydras, spon- 

 gillas, a planaria, and a number of infusoria, from which the green 

 bodies have been pinched off and examined with strong magnifying 

 powers. All the examinations of these different objects have given 

 the uniform result that the green bodies of animals are not evenly 

 green like the chlorophyl-bodies of plants, but contain colorless pro- 

 toplasm besides the green mass, or, at least, a cell-kernel which can 

 be easily distinguished on treatment with hematoxylin. Among them 

 were likewise several cell-kernels, which were regarded as evidences 

 of the beginning^ of division, for normal chlorophyl-cells never con- 

 tain a cell-kernel. 



