CORRESPONDENCE. 



Olive-Brown Seaweeds. 



In the January number of Natural Science, Miss Barton has set forth exhaus- 

 tively, if in somewhat severe language, the present state of our knowledge of the 

 development of the cryptostomata and conceptacles of the Phaeophycese. I do not 

 wish to dispute any single fact she has mentioned, or to question her presentment of 

 the whole body of them, but since the matter is one of considerable interest, a little 

 further discussion of the bearing of the facts and of her suggested interpretations 

 may be profitable. At first sight, the discussion might appear to wear the aspect of 

 a contention for the shell of a nut, while the kernel is despised — that the contents 

 (when there are any) of these bodies might serve us better for discussion, but I do 

 not lind that this view, in effect, has been neglected, though, perhaps, she has pre- 

 sumed the reader to understand more than he commonly does. It might be objected 

 also that this is, to some extent in any case, an affair of growing-points which hardly 

 afford stable characters otherwise in the groups in question. Here, again, one might 

 easily be misled, as there is no diversity of the kind unaccompanied by other 

 characters. A third objection might be raised that, in some of the cases cited, the 

 hairs of the cryptostomata may possibly be discharging the function of absorption, 

 for example, and I may anticipate such an objection by saying that whatever their 

 present function may be, it has little or nothing to do with what the original one 

 may have been, if these are indeed "ancestral structures," as Miss Barton possibly 

 considers them. So far none of these views seriously touch the matter, and I 

 bring them forward to dispose of them merely as a supplement to her article. 



I have no doubt merited Miss Barton's criticisms of my contempt for the 

 ancestors of the Fucacea;, since she shows that some observations of my own 

 might be exhibited as having a genealogical interest in this direction. T think I 

 have spoken of them elsewhere with respect. No one can, indeed, dispute the fact 

 of seaweeds, like other beings, having had ancestors, but my faith has not given me 

 the eye to see these interesting organisms gilded with the romantic attributes that 

 Miss Barton has ascribed to them. Cold facts do not carry us far enough. It may 

 be profitable to ask ourselves the questions with which she concludes her article, 

 but we may also ask them of Nature. We shall certainly get no answer until we 

 do. That may be, and no doubt is, a sententious remark, but without striking too 

 decadent a note, one may at least give warning of the danger of applying such 

 broad principles to an insufficient array of facts. In Miss Barton's case it is, no 

 doubt, a symptom merely of the enthusiasm which will enable her to add to the 

 facts she has already accumulated not the least by her own investigations. 



George Murray. 



Scientific Volapuk. 



In your useful article on "Scientific Volapuk," which should, by the way, be 

 " Volapiik " (World-speech), you quote Professor Hyatt's terms mostly from 

 Zoologischer Anzeiger iov August, 1893. You seem to have overlooked the original 

 paper " Bioplastology and the related branches of biologic research " {Proc. Boston 

 Soc. Nai. Hist., vol. xxvi., pp. 59-125), of which the publication was begun in August 

 and completed in September, 1893. Since this paper contains a few terms that you 



