1895.] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 279 



when the conditions made it possible, and it will cease to 

 manifest itself just as soon as the conditions become 

 sufficiently unfavorable. It was the last of the forms of 

 energy to appear upon this planet, and it will be the first 

 to disappear 



"As life goes on and works with power where the un- 

 aided eye fails to detect it, the microscope — marvelous 

 product of the life energy in the brain of man — shows 

 some of these hidden processes. It has done for the in- 

 finitely little on the earth what the telescope has done 

 for the infinitely great in the sky. 



"Let us commence with the little and simple. If a 

 drop of water from an aquarium, stream or pool is put 

 under the microscope many things appear. It is a little 

 world that one looks into, and like the greater one that 

 meets our eye on the streets, some things seem alive and 

 some lifeless. As we look we shall probably find, as in 

 the great world, that the most showy is liable in the end 

 to be the least interesting. In the microscopic world 

 there will probably appear one or more small rounded 

 masses which are almost colorless. If one of these is 

 watched, lo, it moves, not by walking or swimming, but 

 by streaming itself in the direction. First a slender or 

 blunt knob appears, then into it all of the rest of the 

 mass moves, and thus it it has changed its position. If 

 the observation is continued, this living speck, which is 

 called an amoeba, will be seen to approach some object 

 and retreat; indeed, it comports itself, as if sensitive, 

 with likes and dislikes. If any object suitable for food 

 is met in its wanderings the living substance flows 

 around it, engulfs it and dissolves the nutrient portions 

 and turns them into its own living substance ; the lifeless 

 has been rendered alive. If the eye follows the speck of 

 living matter, the marvels do not cease. After it has 

 grown to a certain size, as if by an invisible string, it 

 constricts itself in the middle and finally cuts itself in 



