40 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [Feb 



An Interesting Object. 



ARTHUR M. EDWARDS, M. D. 



Some years np:o, in the midddle of September, I found 

 in a swift running stream at Tylor Park Station on the 

 Northern Railroad of New Jersey an organism that at 

 the time was new to me and interested me much. I could 

 find no published description of it, so I put it in the genius 

 amoeba for the time being. It was large, being about an 

 inch across and did not require a magnifying glass to see 

 its motions. Then I had not placed the Diatomacese in 

 any kingdom but the vegetable : being convinced that 

 they were plants and that plants and animals were dis- 

 tinct. Now I know that plants, Protista and animals are 

 hut stages of organisms and not distinct but only called 

 80 by those who know them imperfectly. On Sept. 15th, 

 1871, I went to Tylor Park station back of Hoboken,N. J. 

 When searching up and down the stream I came across 

 this giant amoeba. Examining a portion by means of 

 the microscope I drew my first illustration and made the 

 following observation ; it evidently belongs to the Pro- 

 tista of Haeckel but not to any of his genera. It was 

 made up of granules which were moving about in the 

 same way as the whole individual and it did not have an 

 investing membrane which induced me to call it an amcB- 

 ba. The granules were shuttle- shaped and each trem- 

 bled like the particles which escape from burst pollen, 

 — the Brownian motion. I scraped some off of the stones 

 on which I found it and did not hope to retain them alive, 

 for the scraping by means of a knife was rough, but they 

 did live and 1 saw it spread itself, for it was all united in 

 one and seemingly branching itself outfrom a dark, opaque 

 mass at the bottom, up the sides of the bottle. I disen- 

 gaged it which I found easy to do by shaking the bottle, 

 and transferred it to a zoophyte trough where it was made 

 quite at home. It was very restless, continually spread- 



