200 ORIGIN OF ORGANIC MATTER. 



recognised importance of the phosphates in reference to the life of 

 the plant. 



Although there may be innumerable possible modes by which 

 ammonia may be converted by the co-operation of other organic 

 matters into albumen and vegetable gluten, we have not even the 

 faintest support to offer in favour of any one or other of these 

 hypotheses. The disappearance of ammonia, as such, from a corn- 

 pound, and its complete resolution into a new non-saline body, 

 are familiar to the chemist, who besides the metamorphosis of 

 formate of ammonia into prussic acid and of cyanate of ammonia 

 into urea besides the formation of pigments from ammonia and 

 orcine, phlorrhizine, heematoxyline, or erythrine and besides the 

 formation of alkaloids, according to Wurtz or Hoffmann would 

 call to mind innumerable instances in which the ammonia more or 

 less lost its original character and assisted in forming new and 

 very complex bodies, water being at the same time produced. But 

 notwithstanding this pliability of ammonia, which enables it to 

 incorporate itself with all forms of organic groups, we are wholly 

 deficient in the facts necessary to afford special proof of the 

 formation of a nitrogenous substance in the living vegetable 

 organism. 



When we have seen Dumas 5 beautiful idea, that organic nature 

 generates its own elements, confirmed by the most recent investi- 

 gations in the domain of theoretical chemistry ^ and now that we 

 may look forward to the attainment of a more profound knowledge 

 of the arrangement of organic atoms and of the internal con- 

 nection of the endless number of organic bodies, through the 

 brilliant discoveries of Kolbe, Hoffmann, Wurtz, Laurent, and 

 others, and when, finally, the ingenious experiments of Liebig on 

 fermentation and decomposition, on putrefaction, dry distillation, 

 and other processes of decomposition, have enabled us to gain a 

 deeper insight into the forms of the gradual regression of organic 

 matter, we may fairly hope that the time is not far distant 

 when we may be enabled to trace the order of arrangement in 

 which organic matter becomes fully developed. Then, too, we 

 might hope to acquire a more intimate acquaintance with the 

 requirements and circumstances under which the simpler molecules 

 are accumulated and arranged into more complex atoms, until we 

 might perhaps be enabled to form to ourselves as correct an ideal 

 representation of the mode of origin of organic matter as we 

 possess in reference to geological processes. But although the 

 chemist may with pride refer to the great conquests he has 



