644 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ered of different morphological constituents, of ' organs ; ' but, on the contrary, 

 as all the molecules of the structureless carbon compound of the living albumen 

 of which they consist are equally capable of performing the various life-func- 

 tions, it is plain that the idea of an organism can be educed only dynamically or 

 physiologically from vital movement, and not statically or morphologically from 

 the composition of the body out of ' organs.' " 



For some years after this the circle of our experiences with these 

 strange " organisms without organs " was considerably widened. 

 During my voyage to the Canary Islands in 1866-'67 I very naturally 

 directed my whole attention to these organisms, and was so fortunate 

 as to discover many new forms of Moneres. On the white calcareous 

 shells of a remarkable Cepbalopod [Spirula Peronii), found in thou- 

 sands on the coasts of the Canaries, I have sometimes noticed nu- 

 merous little red points, which under the magnifying-glass looked like 

 ornamental stai's, and, when highly magnified, like orange-red proto- 

 plasmic disks or globules, from the circumference of which radiated 

 numerous tree-shaped filaments, with branches. Closer observation 

 showed that these (comparatively colossal) protoplasmic bodies, too, 

 were unnucleated and structureless, and that they propagated after 

 the same manner as Protomonas, the globular, encysted body break- 

 ing up into a great number of little fragments. To this new genus 

 of Moneres I gave the name of Protomyxa aurantlaca^ and it is 

 figured in Plate I. of the " Natural History of Creation." I then, 

 during the same year (1867), found a like magnificent Moneres form 

 in the mud of the harbor of Puerto del Arrecife, the port-town of the 

 island of Lanzarote, and to it gave the name of Myxastruin radians. 

 Its distinguishing mark is this, that the fragments or spores into 

 which the globular body breaks up in the act of propagation arrange 

 themselves in lines radiating from the centre of the globule, and exude 

 spindle-shaped, siliceous envelopes, from which the young Moneres 

 afterward drops out. 



On the strength of all these observations, I, in 1868, published in 

 the Jenaische Zeitschrlft fur Naturvnssenschaft an extended " Mono- 

 graph of the Moneres " (vol. iv., p. 64, Plates II. and III.). In this 

 monograph both my own observations and those of others are set 

 forth at length and discussed. At that time the number of known 

 genera of Moneres was seven. By later observations it has been in- 

 creased to sixteen, as is stated by me in my " Supplement to the Mon- 

 ograph of the Moneres" {Jenaische Zeitschrift fur Naturwissenschaft, 

 1877, vol. vi., p. 23). The diiferences between these Moneres come 

 simply from the fact that the soft, slimy mass expands and moves in 

 difierent forms, and that the asexual propagation (by division, spore- 

 formation, etc.) takes place in different ways. 



II. History of JBathyhiics. The great interest possessed by the 

 Moneres morjihologically as well as physiologically was further height- 

 ened when, in 1868, the foremost zoologist of England, the celebrated 



