Some Questions which they Suggest. 17 



found in which small masses of protoplasm lived and 

 moved without any cell walls at all, but so firmly 

 was the notion of the cell rooted in the minds of many 

 physiologists, that these naked pieces of protoplasm 

 have often been called naked cells, a most confusing term 

 as it seems to us, for it is like calling a man with nothing on 

 " a naked great coat." Another name, and a much more 

 convenient one, is protoplast. 



The accepted cell theory received something like a shock 

 when the life-history of the myxies came to be carefully 

 studied. " All the phenomena," said Cienkowski, in the 

 year 1863, " which are observed in plasmodia are calculated 

 to force the observer from the accustomed path of safety 

 to those of doubt. The fundamental conception of morpho- 

 logical investigation of the cell leaves us wholly in the lurch 

 in the case of plasmodia. Neither cell membrane, nor 

 nucleus, nor other histological elements can be established 

 in this case by the most benevolent interpretation of the 

 facts, and, twist the cell theory as we may, it certainly 

 cannot be fitted to the naked flowing protoplasm of the 

 Myxomycetes." Nuclei, however, have since been found in 

 plasmodia. 



The cell walls of ordinary plants are composed of a 

 peculiar substance known as cellulose, and within these 

 the protoplasm of the cell is contained, with all that may be 

 contained in the protoplasm the nuclei, the chlorophyll, the 

 colouring, and the oily matter, &c. The cell is thus a highly 

 organized unit, and it is, moreover, capable of carrying on 

 most marvellous operations, physical and chemical. 



