128 MR. HENFREY ON THE DEVELOPMENT 
of the important investigations of Count Suminski, which were first made known in 
the * Bulletin’ of the Berlin Academy, and by a note from Dr. J. Münter in the * Bota- 
nische Zeitung,’ but were given in a complete form in a separate treatise by the author 
in 1848*. | 
These investigations, which form the basis of the subject before us, from the capital fact 
of the discovery of the archegonia and of the development of the embryo from one of these, 
present a curious mixture of industrious observation and preconceived theories. It is an 
invidious task to criticise an essay which has so greatly advanced our knowledge of the 
subject, but it is an unavoidable one. The great fault of the essay is the free exercise of 
the imagination in cases where the delicacy of the structures renders the objects exceed- 
ingly difficult to make out clearly. I feel warranted in making this assertion by the fact 
that my own microscope must be equal if not superior to that used by Count Suminski, 
since I have seen, with the greatest clearness, points which he missed, where good defi- 
nition of the microscope was all that was requisite, and on the other hand, I can trace 
actual invention in cases where bad definition of the object would leave points obscure 
which I saw distinctly. Moreover, his figures display appearances which I neither saw 
nor can conceive the possibility of seeing with the distinctness represented in his drawings, 
while some of these bear patent evidence of a faulty interpretation of tolerably clear con- 
ditions. | 
Such assertions of course require evidence, and it is desirable that this should not rest 
upon counter-statements alone, but should furnish some explanation of the probable causes 
of the errors stated to exist. 
parent-cell, which become 
is opposed to all my experience of vegetative growth, not only in these prothallia, but in 
all other plants; and is evidently 
the compound cellular body borne u : : i 
pon a peduncular cell, as a simple cell, dischar, 
the sperm-cells by bursting. He overlooked ther : an 
the very earliest up to the time just preceding the dehiscence, 
antheridia is. The spermatozoids inside the antheridia, 
: again, and those in the free 
* Zur Entwickelungsgeschichte der Farrenkrüuter, 
von J. Grafen Leszezyc-Suminski. 4to, Berlin, 1848. 
