120 Evolution of Vegetal Life. 



are called monera; — simple tiny lumps of protoplasm, 

 which have no containing membrane. Their motion con- 

 sists in a changing of shape by the protrusion and retrac- 

 tion of certain parts, not differing in structure from other 

 parts, and they multiply in a most unmathematical way, by 

 dividing. Are they animal ? Are they vegetable ? Are 

 they not rather a division antecedent to these, and one which 

 cannot be classed with either of the great kingdoms, which 

 probably diverged from it ? Haeckel, with a considerable 

 show of reason, takes the latter position, at least tenta- 

 tively. 



These, and the nearest allied forms, are generally micro- 

 scopic; some may be said to have organization — there is a 

 certain differentiation of parts ; they have motion ; some of 

 them, such as the diatomaceee, have silicious shells or skel- 

 etons, with wonderfully beautiful markings. That you 

 might have some perception of the subtility of nature's 

 handiwork, I should like to show you through my micro- 

 scope a specimen of one of the species of these. You 

 would see a tiny vessel, for all the world like a canoe 

 turned bottom upward (as I have a chilly remembrance of 

 mine having been once, with myself atop, under the gentle 

 ministrations of a September gale in New York harbor), 

 only with stem and stern gracefully curved sidewise in op- 

 posite directions, and regularly marked diagonally from 

 point to point with almost innumerable parallel lines in two 

 series, nearly at right angles. It is magnified 500 diam- 

 eters, — that is, within the space apparently occupied, could 

 be placed 250,000 of the actual diatoms. Mr. McAllister 

 tells me that he has seen the same object under a magnify- 

 ing power of 100,000 diameters, or covering seemingly a 

 surface which would enclose ten billions (or, what is the 

 same thing, 10,000 millions) of the vegetable, if vegetable 

 we are to call it. Of course but an extremely small frac- 

 tion of the object can thus be examined at one time. Un- 

 der this power, the simple parallel lines become the inter- 

 secting paths between continuous rows of hemispherical 

 projections. 



Notwithstanding their shells, and notwithstanding their 

 motion, these are usually accounted vegetable. Indeed, it 

 is difficult to find any test by which that which is animal 

 may be separated absolutely from that which is vegetable. 

 Is it incongruous for a vegetable to have a solid mineral 



