BY MOLECULAR COALESCENCE. 137 
organs, from the paper just referred to, written as early as 
1855, before I was acquainted with the coalescing property 
of the globular carbonate of lime. “The primary con- 
dition of these hooklets is very remarkable, consistmg 
merely of a confused and irregular group of very bright 
particles of a pale straw-colour, which are of various shapes; 
but still all have a contour more or less curvilinear, and 
the smaller ones are of a spherical figure. Their size varies 
from about that of the third part of a handle of a perfect 
hooklet, to a particle so minute as scarcely to be appreci- 
able by the highest powers of the microscope. There are 
all the intermediate sizes between these extremes. Not- 
withstanding, however, these extremes of size and form, 
all these particles possess the same optical and physical 
properties, so as to be perfectly recognisable both when 
apart and when joined together in the perfect hooklet, in 
which the larger pieces, formed obviously by the coalescence 
of smaller ones, can be seen fused (as it were) together, more 
or less completely in a newly-formed hooklet, where 
frequently the joining is so incomplete as to amount to 
little more than mere apposition of the coalescmg parti- 
cles.’ Now, I may observe that there are only two 
interpretations which can be given of these appearances. 
Either they are in reality what I have described them, or 
they must be hooklets in a state of degeneration, that is 
undergoing a process of molecular disintegration. The 
examination by the microscope would furnish no clew to 
the correct decision of this question, as the microscopic 
appearances would, in either case, be similar. But, as it 
can be seen by referring to the original paper, that this 
appearance cannot reasonably be supposed to be due to 
degeneration, it may be inferred in this case to be indica- 
tive of coalescence. For, in the first place, the cysticerci 
