158 JOURNAL OF THE [December, 



Is there not a law of the cosmic force in certain orders of 

 living things whose activity, to use a mechanic's phrase, " works 

 true " on bi-symmetrical lines ? Surely, in the diatomaceae this 

 is apparent. Could it be, in these experiments of mine, that the 

 diatom spores, by the long abeyance (fourteen years) of their 

 life-force in an environment of darkness and quiescence, had 

 lowered this force on some developmental line of the germ, and 

 thus unbalanced it, so that these deformities are but the outcome 

 of unkindly conditions ? 



In crops A and B I observed that the A»ip/ionr were often in 

 groups or swarms. This I have noticed in the species when 

 collected in the ordinary way. So in crop C this gregarious 

 habit was seen to prevail. But, in addition to these groups of 

 recognizable forms, I found swarms of minute bodies whose 

 frustules were proved to be silicate by their indestructibility 

 under the treatment of boiling nitric acid and of liquor potassae. 

 Figure 17 shows one of these swarms, but does not give their 

 varying forms due to the progress of development. The indi- 

 viduals were sharp in outline and in shape varied from a broad 

 oval, tAo in. long and tsW in. wide, to a narrow oval, Wtttt in. 

 long and ^t/utj in. wide. Some were elliptical, having a length 

 of W(jw in. and a width of Wtjt in. They are not circular in 

 transverse section, but depressed, and, the more elliptical they 

 are, the flatter they seem to be. Often, several lie together like 

 a rouleau of coins. These embryos vary in size in the same 

 manner as do the adult Aniphorce. Of these swarms, so numerous 

 on the slides, I can give no interpretation other than that they 

 are embryonal Amphora'. 



In scientific research, the intellectual is supposed to dominate 

 the emotional. But, in the mind excited by novel discoveries, 

 the latter will sometimes assert itself. Thus it was in my case ; 

 and during a spurt of joyful "gush" I took a naturalist friend 

 into my confidence. 



In May. 1883, I started my fifth experiment. A jar like those 

 before described was used, and was marked D. The water in 

 this instance was simply decanted from the demijohn. It 

 seemed to me possible that there might be two kinds of spores, 

 the swimming and the resting. If so, the agitation of the sedi- 

 ment in the demijohn must have given both kinds to the water 

 used in the previous experiments. It was quite possible that, 



