in Orgcmic and iTurrganic Bodies. 368 



The \^ry unexpected fact of seeming vitality retained by 

 these minute particles so long after the death of the plant, 

 would not perhaps have materially lessened my confidence in 

 the supposed peculiarity. But I at the same time observed, 

 that, on bruising the ovula or seeds of Equisetum, which at 

 first happened accidentally, I so greatly increased the number 

 of moving particles, that the source of the added quantity could 

 not be doubted. I found also, that, on bruising first the floral 

 leaves of Mosses, and then all other parts of those plants that I 

 readily obtained similar particles, not in equal quantity indeed, 

 but equally in motion. My supposed test of the male organ 

 was therefore necessarily abandoned. 



Reflecting on all the facts with which I had now become ac- 

 quainted, I was disposed to believe that the minute spherical 

 particles or molecules of apparently uniform size, first seen in 

 the advanced state of the pollen of Onagrariae, and most other 

 Phaenogamous plants, — then in the antherae of Mosses^ and on 

 the surface of the bodies regarded as the stamina of Equise- 

 tum, — and, lastly, in bruised portions of other parts of the 

 same plants, were in reality the supposed constituent or ele- 

 mentary molecules of organic bodies, first so considered by 

 BufFon and Needham, then by Wrisberg with greater preci- 

 sion, soon after and still more particularly by Miiller, and, 

 very recently, by Dr Milne Edwards, who has revived the 

 doctrine, and supported it with much interesting detail. I 

 now, therefore, expected to find these molecules in all organic ' 

 bodies ; and, accordingly, on examining the various animal and 

 vegetable tissues, whether living or dead, they were always 

 found to exist ; and merely by bruising these substances in wa- 

 ter, I never failed to disengage the molecules in sufficient num- 

 bers to ascertain their apparent identity in size, foltn, and mo- 

 tion, with the smaller particles of the grains of pollen. 



I examined also various products of organic bodies, particu- 

 larly the gum resins, and substances of vegetable origin, ex- 

 tending my inquiry even to pit-coal; and in all these bodies 

 molecules were found in abundance. I remark here also, part- 

 ly as a caution to those who may hereafter engage m the same 

 inquiry, that the dust or soot deposited on all bodies in such 



