Russia's Contribution to Science. 233 



Semenovitch Cienkowsky, born in 1822 in Warsau, was the most 

 distinguished student of the lowest plant organisms of his day. 

 In his paper on "The Lowest Algae and Infusorise," published 

 in 1856, he was the first to express the idea that these organisms 

 are not complicated creatures as taught by Ehrenberg, Init uni- 

 cellular forms. His earlier works are mostly on myxomycetse, 

 fungi, and algse. Later he was particularly interested in Bac- 

 teriology and shares with Pasteur the distinction of founder of 

 this science. He applied his knowledge also to practical ends and 

 has described an improved method of inoculation against anthrax. 

 Christopher Yakovlevitch Gobi, another student in algae, born in 

 1847. niade numerous contributions to our knowledge of the 

 marine flora of the Gulf of Finland, of the White Sea and other 

 Russian seas. In more recent years a great deal of work has 

 been done by various Russian botanists on local floras taxonomy 

 and geographical distribution of plants, much of this work hav- 

 ing been published in Russian journals. 



Anatomy and physiology of plants have also found many dis- 

 tinguished investigators among Russian botanists. Andrei Ser- 

 geevitch Faminzyn, born in 1835, a student of Cienkowsky's, is 

 the first to be mentioned in this line. In his student years he 

 published a "Natural History of the Conifers of the St. Peters- 

 ])urg Flora." But soon he turned his attention to physiological 

 problems. In 1861 he printed an investigation entitled "An 

 Attempt of a Chemico Physiological Investigation of the Process 

 of Ripening in Grapes." He worked a great deal with algae 

 as material. In 1867 he published his paper "On the Action of 

 Light on Algae and other closely related Organisms." He 

 extended these investigations to cover many forms, studying the 

 formation of starch and other processes dependent upon the 

 action of light. In 1883 appeared his "Metabolism and Trans- 

 formation of Energy in Plants." His paper on crystals and crys- 

 tallites, published in German in 1884, was a natural sequence of 

 these studies. In 1889 he published "A Contribution to the 

 Question of Symbiosis between Algae and Animals," followed in 

 1890 by an essay on "The Psychic Life of the Lowest Represen- 

 tatives of Living Beings." In 1898 he wrote an article "On 

 Contemporary Natural Science and Psychology," and in 1901 on 

 the "Reform of the System of Education in Russia." 



