VI THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



matter \ Both products have been seen to appear and 

 increase in amount within closed flasks, as minute whitish 

 masses whose existence at first was, to say the least, not 



Fig. h. 



Mass of Spiral Fibre from an Amnionic Tartrate and Sodic Phosphate 

 solution. ( X 600.) 



recognizable. Both yield no colour reactions with the polar- 

 iscope (with or without the aid of a selenite plate) ; whilst in 

 some cases bodies of the modified Sarcina type have been 



^ It has been suggested by others that these spiral-fibre masses are 

 accidental products, which, having gained access to the solutions, have 

 been more or less modified therein — portions of the spiral ducts of 

 plants, for instance, or of spider's w^eb. After repeated careful examina- 

 tions and comparisons, I am still, however, quite unable to adopt either 

 of these views. These particular spiral masses differ wholly from the 

 spiral fibres of plants and all products obtainable from them, and they 

 also differ in many important respects from spider's silk, not only in 

 microscopical characters and in the absence of even slight colour reactions 

 with the polariscope, but also in the complete absence of that silky lustre 

 to the naked eye which still characterizes spider's silk, even after it has 

 been boiled in, and has remained immersed in an ammonic tartrate 

 solution for two or more weeks. Like Sarcina, the spiral fibres have 

 been obtained only from slightly acid ammoniacal solutions, in which 

 a phosphate was present. 



