Cardiff : Synapsis and reduction 273 



chromosome in the sense in which that term is used for other or- 

 ganisms.- Most of the investigators of this period, however, be- 

 lieved that, as a general thing, tetrads, in the strict sense, are not 

 formed. Miss Sargant ('95) concluded that both divisions were 

 longitudinal in Lilium. This was soon concurred in by Stras- 

 burger ('95), Farmer and Moore ('95) Dixon ('96), and by a 

 number of other workers. Two years later Strasburger and Mot- 

 tier ('97) figured a longitudinal and a transverse division in Lilium 

 and several other angiosperms. Practically similar results were 

 obtained by Ishikawa ('97) in Allium, and by Belajefif ('98) in 

 Iris. Schaffner ('97), also working with Lilium, figured a trans- 

 verse division in the first mitosis and a longitudinal in the second. 

 Atkinson ('99) in Arisacma represents a tedrad formation which 

 he interprets as a transverse and a longitudinal division, the trans- 

 verse appearing in the first mitosis. In the same article he repre- 

 sents a transverse division in the second mitosis in Trillium. At- 

 kinson attempts to reconcile the discordant views of the different 

 investigators by the interesting explanation that in some plants 

 there is a true reduction, while in others both mitoses are quanti- 

 tative, and he even believes that "in the same plant qualitative 

 reduction may take place in some cells, while quantitative or nu- 

 merical reduction only takes place in others." Strasburger and 

 Mottier soon changed their opinion and again believed both di- 

 visions to be longitudinal. The latter view was held by Gregoire 

 C99), McGregor ('99), Guignard ('99), Lloyd ('02), and others. 

 Such, briefly, was the state of the question at the beginning of the 

 present century. About the only conclusion one can draw from a 

 review of the literature of the period is that a large majority of the 

 investigators believed that both divisions are longitudinal and that, 

 therefore, there is no true reduction. 



Moore ('95) in his work on elasmobranchs found a unilateral 

 massing of the chromatin at one side of the mother-cell nucleus 

 previous to the formation of the chromosomes of the first mitosis 

 and named this stage synapsis. Moore probably did not at the 

 time appreciate the significance of synapsis nor know that he had 

 so well named this which seems destined to prove the most im- 

 portant stage in the ontogeny of an organism. Little attention 

 was. paid to this work, as for some time synapsis was thought to 



