112 GLOBULINE. [BOOK i. 



rotation when suspended in water ; and this motion looks as 

 if spontaneous ; for of several floating near each other, in the 

 same medium, a part will be in active motion, while others 

 remain inactive. 



Turpin called such granules Globuline, and considered 

 them the most elementary condition of vegetable tissue ; an 

 opinion adopted, with some modifications, by Raspail, who 

 looks upon each granule as one of the elementary molecules 

 of tissue in a state of development. This writer assigns 

 them a point of attachment or hilum, by which they originally 

 adhered to the parent cell : he considers that cellular tissue 

 is produced by the development and mutual pressure of each 

 granule, and that all the varied forms of plants may be 

 explained by reference to this principle. (Nouv. Syst. de 

 Chimie Organique, p. 83.) Morren states that these grains 

 of fecula are the first stage of a crowd of organs, and that 

 he can demonstrate the free spiral thread of Collomia and 

 Salvia to be at first an amylaceous granule. This, however, 

 does not correspond with the statements of Schleiden, to be 

 given presently. 



Some of the starch-like granules, called Globuline by 

 Turpin, appear to have, under particular circumstances, the 

 power of spontaneous growth, by which they multiply and 

 increase themselves externally. This is particularly visible in 

 the fecula of Barley; which, if observed in its original state, 

 is found to be composed of angular, irregular bodies, some of 

 which are of extreme minuteness, and seem to have a power 

 of spontaneous motion in water. Shortly after germination 

 these bodies, according to Turpin, appear to lose their 

 substance, to become more transparent and flaccid, a circum- 

 stance which he thinks is owing to the chemical change of 

 their starch into sugar: the bodies, however, at this time 

 retain their property of becoming blue under the action of 

 iodine. When this alteration has been carried far enough, 

 the maltster stops the new chemical action by heat and 

 dry ness, and fixes the sugar, producing malt. When the 

 amylaceous granules are placed in water of a certain tempera- 

 ture, rendered sweet by the dissolution of their own sugar, 

 and exposed to the influence of the oxygen of the atmosphere, 



