POPULAR ILLUSTRATIONS 



LOWER FORMS OF LIFE. 



PART I. 

 THE PROTOPHYTON. 



CHAPTEE I. 



I PEOPOSE to offer a series of chapters on the various phases of 

 organic life, commencing with the lowest form of vegetable 

 structure, and ascending in the scale upwards. 



I hope to make these illustrations both interesting and instructive. 

 I shall endeavour to present the inner pages of the great book of 

 nature in a form which will be readily understood by all classes of 

 readers. 



Thus, while they may enjoy that true delight by means of their 

 senses, which is afforded by looking at beautiful scenery, or watch- 

 ing the habits of the creatures by which it is peopled, I shall not, I 

 think, be asking too much in calling upon them to go a step further, 

 and to follow me in the intellectual investigation of organic structure, 

 its uses, and its adaptations to the purposes for which living things 

 were created. 



With these remarks, I proceed to ask What is the Protophyton ? 



It is the type of the ultimate structure of plants, and before we 

 study the animal organisation it is necessary to have a just concep- 

 tion of that of the vegetable. The protophyton is a simple cell, 

 only seen through the microscope, containing a fluid and having a 

 nucleus, and what are called cell-walls. 



In its simplest form, as seen in the fungus which appears in vast 

 districts on the surface of snow, and known as red snow, this cell 

 constitutes the entire plant. The protophyton is distinguished from 

 the protozoon, which is the type of animal structure, in the im- 

 portant fact that it absorbs carbonic acid gas from the atmosphere, 



B 



