THE MICROSCOPE AND ITS PREPARATIONS. 169 



and to watch their growth. You would be surprised, if you did 

 not already know the fact, to see that the spores did not, like 

 seeds, produce ferns or anything like them. They produce what 

 is called " the nurse " of the future generation of ferns. It is 

 a plant resembling another and a lower order than the ferns 

 themselves : a little flat leaf with a tiny stalk and root imme- 

 diately under the middle of it. On this leaf when mature, little 

 projections arise, in a certain number of which are developed 

 minute spiral sperm-cells with vibratile cilia at one end of them, 

 which finally leave the cases in which they were produced and 

 wriggle about in a lively manner over the surface of the leaf. 

 In the meanwhile another but much smaller number of the pro- 

 jections develop into stationary germ cells ; and into these germ 

 cells the active little motile cells eventually find their way, thus 

 fructifying the germ, which immediately commences to throw 

 down a separate root and to develop into the true fern. It is a 

 case of alternate generation among plants ; and it is the same 

 kind of reproduction which is so common among the lower 

 orders of animals, the invertebrates, in which one kind of animal 

 produces another entirely unlike itself, which in its turn produces 

 the first kind again. Both the plants and the animals which 

 undergo this strange kind of generation, lived and flourished 

 together, and possessed the earth all by themselves, in that far 

 olden time when .the coal beds were being made. And up to 

 this time there had not been an " herb yielding seed " nor a 

 " tree yielding fruit after its kind " on the earth. Apparently 

 the sublime narrative of organic creation given in Genesis, com- 

 mences at this point. 



It has been objected to the method of preparing such speci- 

 mens as I have described to you that is by decolorizing them 

 and then staining them in various colors that they are unnat- 

 ural, that there are no such things thus colored in all the realm 

 of the vegetable kingdom. This objection formed the burden 

 of a very caustic article published some months ago by a distin- 

 guished microscopist. He was immediately replied to by such a 

 number of infuriated preparers that, so far as I know, the 

 distinguished microscopist has never opened his head since. 



