THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 387 



The interest attaching to these observations of M. 

 Nicolet is extremely great, though other observations of 

 Mr. H. J. Carter, to which we shall now allude, are just 

 as startling. Nicolet does not appear to have been 

 aware of these, though they were made known more 

 than two years before his own were published. It was 

 in a paper communicated to the Bombay branch of the 

 Royal Asiatic Society 1 in November, 1856, entitled 

 'Transformation of the Vegetable Protoplasm into 

 Actinopkrysj that Mr. Carter first published these very 

 important observations. The transformations had, for 

 the most part, been witnessed taking place within the 

 cells of Splrogyra crassa, one of the filamentous fresh- 

 water Algae, and about the largest representative of its 

 genus. 



He says: c Under certain circumstances, the cell of 

 Spirogyra apparently dies, the chlorophyll becomes yellow, 

 and the protoplasm leaving its natural position divides 

 up into portions of different sizes, each of which en- 

 closes more or less of the chlorophyll- these portions 

 travel about the cell under a rhizopodous form, the 

 chlorophyll within them turns brown, the portions of 

 protoplasm then become actinophorous, then more 

 radiated, and finally assume the figure of Actmopkrys. 



1 And reported in 'Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Hist.' 1857, vol. xix. 

 p. 259. Concerning the facts themselves Mr. Carter has never varied, 

 and he is well known to be a most conscientious and trustworthy 

 observer. At different times, however, he has been inclined to explain 

 these and other observations differently (see 'Ann. of Nat. Hist.' 1861, 

 pp. 285-238). 



C C 2 



