190 THANSAUTIONS AND I'ltOCEEDINGS OF THE [Sess. Lxvi. 



protoplasm has passed from the kinetic to the static con- 

 dition, and that under such circumstances, the low tem- 

 perature being maintained, " it is difficult to see why there 

 should be any limit to its perfect stability." 



Protoplasm, when manifesting life, contains much water, 

 and desiccation only suspends the vital manifestation, but 

 does not, according to Giglio-Tos {loc. cit. p. 101), destroy 

 the living substance. The composition of the molecules 

 remains unaltered because the water does not enter chemi- 

 cally into their constitution, but is only physically held as 

 water of adhesion and of capillarity. The molecular move- 

 ment ceases because of the absence of the interraolecular 

 water, which serves as the medium of nutritive exchange. 

 This view is essentially the same as that of De Candolle 

 and Brown and Escombe, and according to it the possibilities 

 as to the duration of the latent life of seeds appear very 

 considerable. To this, however, there would appear to be 

 some limit. Gain, e.g., finds ("Comp, Eend.," cxxx., 1900, 

 p. 1643) that in mummy-wheat and barley, while the 

 external appearance and chemical composition of the 

 endosperm are unaltered, the embryo itself has undergone 

 such marked chemical change as to be incapable of 

 germination, and he concludes that the latent life has 

 long ago expired. Of course, it is just possible that the 

 seeds were chemically treated before being put into the 

 mummy -cases by the Egyptians. There is no doubt, 

 however, that seeds may retain their germinative capacity 

 for very considerable periods of time. 



Sir William Thiselton-Dyer, in discussing the physio- 

 logical bearing of his liquid hydrogen experiments on the 

 phenomena of life generally, points out that, if the mole- 

 cules of living matter be regarded as reduced to the static 

 condition, resting protoplasm is in the condition of an ex- 

 plosive, and there is no criterion whereby to distinguish 

 living matter in the static condition from dead substance. 



This would appear to depend on the particular theory 

 held as to living matter. In a purely chemical theory the 

 difficulty is not an insuperable one. The explosive can 

 always be distinguished from the inert mass by applying the 

 proper conditions, just as one chemical substance can be 

 distinguished from another by its reactions to particular 



