CHAPTER II 



THE PROTOPLAST AS HOUSE-BUILDER AND HOUSE-FURNISHER 



Moreover, the walls of the cells themselves are the work of <the protoplasts, and it is not a 

 mere phrase, but a literal fact, that the protoplasts build their abodes themselves, divide and 

 adapt the interiors according to their requirements, store up necessary supplies within them, and, 

 most important of all, provide the wherewithal needful for nutrition, for maintenance, and for 

 reproduction. KERNEB. 



THE subject of our last chapter was protoplasm, that wonderful sub- 

 stance which Beale calls the "vital element" of organic bodies, 

 and which Huxley has well denned as the " physical basis of life." We 

 now propose to advance a step further, and to speak of some of the 

 wonderful results of protoplasmic activity in other words, of the cells 

 themselves (Hooke's " little boxes," if you please), as well as of the 

 changes which they undergo, and of the various substances elaborated 

 within them. 



It will be evident to the least reflective mind that these changes must 

 be considerable, otherwise there would be no accounting for the infinite 

 diversities of form, structure, and properties which the Vegetable World 

 presents. For, since the most complex organisms are only the products 

 of cell formation and transformation, and all cells in their beginnings 

 are so much alike, the changes must be vast indeed that produce those 

 diversities that give us, for instance, in one case a stalk of Wheat, in 

 another a spreading Oak, and in a third a Mushroom. 



It will be remembered that 

 the resting spore of our rain- 

 water plant was almost round, 

 while the cells of the piece of 

 onion-skin were hexagonal, and 

 those of the staminal hair of 

 Tradescantia were in two cases 

 oblong, in a third almost spheri- 

 cal, and in a fourth triangular : 

 four distinct shapes in a less 

 number of minute objects in- 

 ferential evidence, surely, that 

 the forms of cells may vary 

 greatly. 



B 



FIG. 42. A : OVAL CELL FROM FRUIT OF SNOW- 

 BERRY. B : OVAL CELL FROM LEAF OF PINK. 

 a : NUCLEUS. 



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