M. RaspaiPs experiments mi the granules of Pollen. 97 



Amici has thus guessed but not proved the existence of a boyato 

 susceptible of issuing during the explosion of the grains of 

 pollen ; and I believe I may claim, in virtue of direct and posi- 

 tive experiments, the discovery of an internal tissue, glutinous 

 and elastic, which springs sometimes out of the pollen under 

 the form of a hoyau or of several vesicles. 



Sometimes, instead of the vermicular sinuosities of which I 

 have spoken, there are seen issuing without any order small 

 corpuscles, very variable in their shape, their aspect, and their 

 diameter, not only from different vegetables, but even in the 

 pollen of the same vegetable. In measuring them, it appears 

 to me that observers have paid attention only to those which re- 

 sembled one another, and that they had neglected those which 

 exceeded or did not reach the measure originally observed. 

 Thus, according to my opinion, they have found that the 

 globules of blood, and those which compose the tissues, invari- 

 ably affect the same diameter. 



Respecting the spontaneous motion which is now believed 

 to be found in all inactive substances, I have never observed 

 the slightest trace of it. The granules issuing from pollen 

 have themselves an appearance which for a long time made me 

 doubt their organized nature, and it is to attempt to clear up 

 these doubts that I have principally made use of the pollen of 

 the Malvaceae. I shall now proceed to explain, under the form 

 of corollaries, the various results which I have obtained from 

 a great number of consecutive observations. 



I. A number of causes, of which it is indispensable to exa- 

 mine the influence, communicate to the most inactive granules 

 an appearance of spontaneous motion. 



Isty The Explosion which discharges the Granules. — The 

 motion communicated will be the more rapid as the explosion is 

 more energetic ; and as the medium in which the granules float 

 has itself received an agitation tending to make a variety in the 

 level of the surface, it produces different reactions, which will 

 carry the observed granules in different directions. But this 

 motion will soon subside by gradual and decreasing oscillations. 

 2d, Capillarity. — It is very easy to see by the microscope, 

 that the most inactive bodies perform many various and sud- 

 den motions during the time they take to become wet The 



VOL. X. NO. I. JAN. 1829. G 



