470 MICROSCOPICAL OBSERVATIONS 



in which the existence of sexual organs had not been uni- 

 versally admitted. 



In the supposed stamina of both these families, namely, 

 in the cylindrical aiitherge or pollen of Mosses, and on the 

 surface of the four spatlmlate bodies surrounding the naked 

 ovulum, as it may be considered, of Equisetum, I found 

 minute spherical particles, apparently of the same size with 

 the molecule described in Oiiagrarise, and having equally 

 8] vivid motion on immersion in water ; and this motion 

 was still observable in specimens both of Mosses and of Equi- 

 seta, which had been dried up^vards of one hundred years. 



The veiy unexpected fact of seeming vitality retained by 

 these minute particles so long after the death of the plant 

 would not perhaps have materially lessened my confidence 

 in the supposed peculiarity. But I at the same time ob- 

 served, that on bruising the ovula or seeds of Equisetum, 

 which at first happened accidentally, I so greatly increased 

 the number of moving particles, that the source of the added 

 quantity could not be doubted. I found also that on 

 bruising first the floral leaves of Mosses, and then all other 

 parts of those plants, that I readily obtained similar parti- 

 cles, not in equal quantity indeed, but equally in motion. 

 My supposed test of the male organ w^as therefore necessa- 

 rily abandoned. 



Reflecting on all the facts with which I had now become 

 acquainted, I w^as disposed to believe that the minute sphe- 

 rical particles or Molecules of apparently uniform size, first 

 seen in the advanced state of the pollen of Onagrarise, and 

 most other Phsenogamous plants, — then in the anthera3 of 

 Mosses and on the surface of the bodies regarded as the 

 stamina of Equisetum, — and lastly in bruised portions of 

 other parts of the same plants, were in reality the supposed 

 constituent or elementary Molecules of organic bodies, first 

 so considered by BufFon and Needham, tlien by Wrisberg 

 with greater precision, soon after and still more particularly 

 by Miller, and, very recently, by Dr. Milne Edw^ards, who 

 has revived the doctrine and supported it wdth much inter- 

 esting detail. I now therefore expected to find these mole- 

 cules in all organic bodies : and accordingly on examining 



