

THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 67 



vicinity of the ramifications of the vessels will be seen 

 to contain very small spherules of starch, many of them 

 too minute to be accurately measured; yet, notwith- 

 standing their minuteness, their figure is well defined, 

 and they are made black or blue by iodine, proving that 

 they are as much starch as the larger globules, and 

 differing from them in nothing but size. These spherules 

 may be either free in their starch-cells or conglomerated 

 and joined together in pairs or threes, producing dumb- 

 bell or somewhat triangular forms. Sometimes they are 

 found with shreds of membrane, and at others are in- 

 vested more or less by an utricle. In the starch-cells 

 more remote the granules are larger and fewer, so that 

 their increase in size is attended with a diminution in 

 number, showing most clearly that the largest are the 

 product of the union of those of an inferior size. 

 Indeed, the number of granules of a small size is such in 

 some of the starch-cells that it would be impossible that 

 they all could become developed into large granules 

 without the space containing them undergoing a most 

 inordinate increase in size, which is not the fact ; the 

 spaces in which the middle-sized granules are lodged 

 being about the same size as those containing the 

 largest granules. But the chief evidence in support of 

 this conclusion must be obtained from the microscopic 

 examination of all the various forms of starch, beginning 

 with that which is merely granular and going up to that 

 which is most perfect. Such an examination will 

 show that there are exactly the same class of appear- 



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