454 THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 



with regard to the following case, cited by the author 

 of c The Vestiges of Creation.' He says l : c In a work 

 upon the useful Mosses, M. de Brebisson states that a 

 pond in the neighbourhood of Falain, having been ren- 

 dered dry during many weeks in the height of summer,, 

 the ground was immediately and entirely covered., to 

 the extent of many square yards, by a minute, compact 

 green turf, formed of an imperceptible 2 moss, the 

 Phaseum axil I are, the stalks of which were so close to 

 each other that upon a square inch of this new soil 

 might be counted more than five thousand individuals 

 of this new plant, which had never previously been 

 observed in the country.' The simultaneous growth in 

 one small spot of hundreds of thousands of specimens of 

 this particular Moss might be easily reconcilable with 

 their heterogenetic origin from Confervx or algoid 

 vesicles of some kind 3 ; whilst an explanation of the 

 phenomenon on any other hypothesis would seem to 

 be absolutely irreconcilable with all known facts con- 

 cerning the growth of Mosses and concerning the 

 comparative paucity with which the reproductive ele- 



1 Tenth edition, 1852, p. 201. 



2 Not actually ' imperceptible,' of course, although the several plants 

 might have been more or less indistinguishable fiom one another in the 

 green turf formed by their aggregation. 



3 Dr. Gros says : ' Les Conferves les plus diverges peuvent descendre 

 d'une meme semence, selon le degre de division et les circonstances de 

 developpement. Cette semence change de qualit^s, par un travail 

 interieur myst&'ieux. La vt^g.'tation confervienne qui dans les eaux, 

 en reste aux formes cellulaires aboutees, se complique et se cellulise, et 

 donnent des mousses dans un milieu aerien.* 



