DR. WALLICITS VIEWS. 25 



which are independent structures altogether. " Bathybius" 

 instead of being a widely-extending sheet of living protoplasm 

 which grows at the expense of inorganic elements, is rather 

 to be regarded as a complex mass of slime with many 

 foreign bodies and the debris of living organisms which 

 have passed away. Numerous minute living forms are, 

 however, still found on it. 



Dr. Wallich is of opinion that each coccosphere is just 

 as much an independent structure at Thalassicolla or Col- 

 lospJmra, and that, as in other cases, " nutrition is effected 

 by a vital act," which enables the organism to extract from 

 the surrounding medium the elements adapted for its nutri- 

 tion. These are at length converted into its sarcode and 

 shell material. In fact, in these lowest simplest forms, we 

 find evidence of the working of an inherent vital power, and 

 in them nutrition seems to be conducted upon the same 

 principles as in the highest and most complex beings. In 

 all cases the process involves, besides physical and chemical 

 changes, purely vital actions, which cannot be imitated, and 

 which cannot be explained by Physics and Chemistry. 



Chemistry of Protoplasm. From what has been said 

 already, it must be obvious that the chemistry of the 

 complex matter now termed protoplasm, embraces, i, the 

 chemistry of the formed matter, and 2, the chemistry of 

 the active, living, growing, matter, of an organism. By 

 chemical analysis we can ascertain the composition of the 

 first, and can learn many facts concerning its elementary 

 chemical characters; but it is obvious that chemistry can 

 teach us little with regard to the composition of the living 

 matter, for we kill it when we attempt to analyze it ; and 



