464 TKANSACTIONS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE [Sess. lx. 



tions of Amici and Brongniart relating to the formation 

 of the pollen tube ; he also observed, as Amici had done, 

 that the tubes make their way to the micropyles of the 

 ovules. He was, however, in doubt whether all the tubes 

 originated from the pollen grains, or whether they were 

 indirectly generated by them. He says (p. 539): "It is 

 possible, therefore, that the mucous cords may be entirely 

 derived from the pollen, not, however, by mere elongation 

 of the original pollen tubes, but by an increase in their 

 number, in a manner which I do not attempt to explain." 

 No one was better aware than Brown of the incomplete- 

 ness of this statement. He remarks (p. 538): "My 

 observations on the origin of these tubes are not altogether 

 satisfactory." One may express the wish that all writers 

 would be equally candid at their own expense. 

 * But the part of this remarkable paper which is the most 

 generally known is that which connects Eobert Brown's 

 name, perhaps more than that of any other man, with the 

 discovery of the nucleus of the cell. We will endeavour 

 to place his contribution to the subject in its correct light. 

 He was by no means the first to see, and represent in 

 drawing, the nucleus of the cell ; the earliest notice of it 

 of which we at present have record is by Fontana, in his 

 work " Sur les Poisons et sur le Corps Animal," Florence, 

 1781 (vol. ii., pi. 1, figs. 7, 10). He examined the cells 

 detached from the slimy skin of the eel, and described how, 

 after partially drying, there appeared "a small body within, 

 situated in different positions in each globule." In his 

 fig. 10 he represents one of the cells on a larger scale, 

 plainly showing the nucleus in a central position. Thus, 

 probably, the earliest representation of the nucleus appears 

 to have been in the animal, not in the vegetable cell, and 

 to date a full half century before Brown's paper. Doubt- 

 less an exhaustive study of the publications from 1780 to 

 1830 would disclose other isolated observations of a like 

 nature, and Brown himself refers to such by Meyer, 

 Purkinje, and Brongniart (I.e. p. 514) in the vegetable cell. 

 Certainly in the atlas to Meyer's " Phytotomia " (1830) 

 several of the drawings indicate the nucleus more or less 

 clearly. Without following out or enumerating such sporadic 

 notes, it may be stated that up to 1830 no general importance 



