Trans. N. V. Ac. Sci. 



32 



Nov. 21. 











?,%.® 



^,*:' *SH^^r^|,l| 



g g of " pores " through which 

 ■z ^ nutrient juices might pass. 

 g 2 Budge and others believe 

 •n ° in the presence of regular 

 ^^■2 canals for this purpose, 

 c'S ^ while Tillmanns and many 

 g ^ S g- with him believe that hya- 

 X c-S = line basis-substance con- 

 ■B S--^ :^ sists of fine fibrils so close- 

 I l.-S K ly held together by a 

 I 5 = J' cement-substance that the 

 5 ^ c' ^ mass appears to be homo- 

 ^ts^ geneous. It is supposed by 

 some that this inter-fibril- 

 £, o-^ u lar cement-substance is a 

 viscous soft material which 

 •^ ttiffi ^ permits the imbibition of 



Si S" nutrient liquid; by some 



r C^ that there are clefts or fis- 

 5 sures; and by others that 

 ^ there are regular channels 

 "3 tunnelled in this cement- 

 -5 substance. On the other 

 5: hand, Heitzmann, Spina, 



c 



.2 Flesch and others have 

 ■^ found that there are cilia- 

 like offshoots or prolonga- 

 tions of the substance of 

 - « S a the corpuscle penetrating 

 ~ 2 ^ into the basis-substance. 

 ii Such prolongations might 

 carry on nutrition. I have 

 •|-g ^ had the opportunity, six or 



'Z'u 



y p 6 seven years ago, to repeat 



<ai 



Heitzmann's observations 

 under his own eyes and with his assistance ; but the results as to their 

 correctness, at which I arrived, were to the best of my belief unin- 

 fluenced by him. 



My own recent investigations have not only confirmed the existence 

 of such offshoots and shown that they form an inter-connected reti- 

 culum or network throughout the basis-substance, but I have discov- 

 ered in several specimens small lumps in this network which, by all 

 the tests applied to them, were proved to be lumps of living matter in 



