6 The Microscope. 



the lowest vegetable forms. Authors are not agreed about 

 the cause of the motion. " The quivering oscilations of 

 cocci are generally regarded as only Brownian or molecular ;" 

 — *' some other observers believe that the movements of cocci 

 are due to the existence of a flagellum" (tail). The idea that 

 bacteria are instrumental in promoting the germinating process 

 is not a new one ; see Goodale's Physiological Botany, p. 469 : 

 " It is said that in soil that has been completely sterilized, that 

 is, freed from microbes or their germs, seeds provided with all 

 other requisites for germination will fail to sprout. These 

 experiments by Duclaux have not been repeated by other 

 observers." But the isolating of a specific form of bacterium in 

 this special work, at its work in the cell, seems to me to be 

 a new observation. We must conclude that these intercellular 

 bacteria, which we have so often found thus at work, are develop- 

 ing that special ferment which is instrumental in germination. 

 As we carr\^' this subject along in thought, we see in other seeds, 

 in all seeds everywhere, this or some form of bacterium working 

 in the protoplasm of the cells for the same purpose during the 

 process of germination. Right here the question for further 

 thought and study is, Do these bacteria, by working directly on 

 the starch grains, transform them into soluble matters, or do 

 they perform this indirectly by developing the ferments to 

 digest the starch gains ? 



We will now mount a section from a sprouted onion, which 

 afterwards Avas frozen so that the leaves of the bulb presented a 

 dead, sodden appearance. In this mount we see the protoplasm 

 in the cells more distinctly than in the former series of studies. 

 In this the protoplasm has separated from the walls and floats 

 like cumulus clouds of a summer afternoon in the transparent 

 cell sap, but showing no signs of life or motion, and no treat- 

 ment that I know of will produce streaming, for we can not re- 

 store the dead to life. The M. germinatus are motionless or 

 dead, and other forms of bacteria have commenced to work, on 

 the outside of the cells mostly, in the slimy, slippery fluid of 

 decomposition, and in this we observe numerous bacteria, of 

 mostly rod forms. We measure them, 2, 3, 4,5, 6, 8, 10,a long 

 by .5, -tS, l,a, usually less than 1// wide, the larger individual 

 forms being slightly curved with squarish, blunt ends, sub- 

 cylindrical bodies ; these are very numerous and very active, 



