646 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



"In this dredging [Globigerina-ooze taken at tlie depth of 2,435 fathoms in 

 the bay of Biscay], as in most others in the bed of the Atlantic, there was evi- 

 dence of a considerable quantity of soft gelatinous organic matter, enough to 

 give a slight viscosity to the mud of the surface layer. If the mud be sliaken 

 with weak spirits of wine, fine flakes separate like coagulated mucus ; and if a 

 little of the mud in which this viscid condition is most marked be placed in a 

 drop of sea-water under the microscope, we can usually see, after a time, an ir- 

 regular network of matter resembling white-of-egg, distinguishable by its main- 

 taining its outline, and not mixing with the water. This network may be seen 

 gradually altering in form, and entangled granules and foreign bodies change 

 their relative positions. The gelatinous matter is therefore capaile of a certain 

 amount of movement^ and there can be no douht that it manifests the pheiwmena 

 of a very simple form of life.''"' 



My own researches on Bathybius-ooze had to do, like those of 

 Huxley, only with dead substance in alcohol. The bottle in which it 

 had been sent to me from the Faroe Islands bore this label: "Dredged 

 of Prof. Thomson and Dr. Carpenter with the steamer Porcupine, in 

 2,435 fathoms. 22. July 1869. Latitude 47 38', longitude 12 4'." 

 Thus this Bathybius-ooze was the same on which the observers named 

 above had made their investigations of the amoeboid movements. 

 The results of my own investigations I have stated fully in my 

 " BeitrLige zur Plastiden-Theorie " (II. '' Bathybius and the Free Pro- 

 toplasm of the Sea-Depths," JenaiscJte Zeitschrift fur Naturicissen- 

 schaft, 1870, voh v., p. 499, Plate XVII.). The eighty figures I there 

 give of the different formless protoplasm-masses of Bathybius, and of 

 the little calcareous bodies included in the same, were copied with the 

 utmost exactness from very highly-magnified images of those organ- 

 isms taken with the aid of the camera lucida. Some of the fissures 

 have also been used in my paper on " Life in the Profoundest Depths 

 of the Sea," which was published in 1870, in the Virchow-IIolzendorff 

 Collection (No. 110). 



This specimen of Bathybius-ooze, which had been very well pre- 

 served in strong alcohol, I examined as minutely as possible, employ- 

 ing the newest methods of research, and in particular the excellent 

 method not employed by Huxley in his investigation of staining 

 with carmine and iodine, my purpose being, above all, to determine 

 more accurately the quantity and quality of the amorphous pro- 

 toplasmic matter. This albuminous substance, which was reddened 

 by carmine, was very evenly distributed through the ooze, and in most 

 of the specimens examined constituted at least one-tenth to one-fifth 

 of the whole volume ; in many instances it was as much as one-half. 

 The same protoplasmic masses which, on treatment with carmine, be- 

 came of a more or less deep-red tint, took from iodine and pure nitric 

 acid a yellow color; and with other chemical reagents they exhibited 

 precisely the same properties as the protoplasm of animal and vegetal 

 cells. The form of most of the little masses was irregular, roundish, 

 or provided with obtuse processes resembling those of an Amoeba; 



