404 Prof. Reichert on the Phenomena of Motion 



water) ; it is only with the greatest effort and the most favour- 

 able light that the extreme ends of the filaments can be traced. 

 Where many pseudopodia lie together, the outlines become 

 sharper and at the same time darker, and, in the animals ex- 

 amined by me, a yellowish coloration makes its appearance. If 

 we leave out of consideration the apparent granules occurring in 

 the so-called granular movement, no globules or corpuscles of 

 measurable size were detected at any time or in any place in or 

 on the pseudopodia. Thicker bundles, engaged either in expan- 

 sion or contraction, have usually a finely granulated appearance. 

 It cannot, however, be ascertained by direct observation whether 

 this is produced by fine wrinklings and inequalities of the sur- 

 face, or by fine granules imbedded in the apparently hyaline 

 mass. In the lamella? and structures like swimming membranes 

 formed by the apparent coalescence of the filaments, a granular 

 habitus is also not unfrequently visible. These granules, how- 

 ever, belong either to the so-called granular movement, or it 

 still remains uncertain whether we have to do with a true 

 granule or with a portion of the filament only altered in its 

 form, and resembling a granule. As the granular marking is 

 always lost immediately when the filaments lie quietly in the 

 extended state, or the granular plates and lamellae again break 

 up into quiescent extended filaments, it must be inferred that 

 the granular marking is only apparent, and produced by altera- 

 tions of form in the hyaline filaments. 



As regards the important question of the state of cohesion 

 and consistence of the substance of the pseudopodia, direct ex- 

 periments for the solution of this cannot be instituted. We are 

 therefore compelled to draw conclusions upon the above-men- 

 tioned physical property from the behaviour of the filaments 

 during active and passive movements, and during their approxi- 

 mation and separation. Here, in the first place, the fact must 

 be proved that, however the filaments may change their form, 

 bend, twist, apparently coalesce, and again separate, their ori- 

 ginal form is finally preserved under all civcumstances, and under- 

 goes no change. From this it follows that their substance can- 

 not be fluid. Moreover, if we will not blindly trust in the dogmas 

 of the various primordial-slime theories, adopt the erroneous 

 theory of the so-called granular movement, and accept the ap- 

 parent coalescence of the filaments as a real one without further 

 examination, we shall be compelled, in the presence of the facts 

 adduced, to declare the comparison with fluid wax or with a 

 mucus of similar consistence to be quite untenable. But, from 

 the behaviour of the filaments during changes of their form by 

 active and passive movements, it may with certainty be inferred 

 that their substance must be extraordinarily soft and flexible. I 



