62 BEALE'S PEOTOPLASMIC THEORY. 



it ; for he speaks of the " plasm " of the cell wall secreting 

 formative matter, and he does not attempt to found a general 

 theory of living and dead matters on these observations. 



I have repeated the above experiments by growing wheat in 

 water to which carmine, dissolved in a weak solution of liquor 

 ammonise, was added in various proportions ; and also grown 

 in earth, and watered with the above solutions. The general 

 results were quite confirmatory of those discovered and figured 

 by Lord S. G. Osborne ; but, in many instances, the general 

 tinting, especially of the spongioles, was too uniform and 

 intense. The colouring matter had been deposited irregularly, 

 and on both the formed material and the amorphous proto- 

 plasm. But in some of the youngest cells, at the apex, which 

 I have now mounted in glycerine, the distinction can be very 

 well seen. The cell wall is seen as a transparent glassy mem- 

 brane, while the contents are stained irregularly in different 

 degrees of intensity, just like the yeast cells figured by 

 Dr. Beale. In the older cells an intensely stained spherical 

 nucleus is seen, as figured by Lord S. G. Osborne. On the whole, 

 the distinction into living matter and formed material is not 

 so palpable as to force itself on the attention ; and, indeed, we 

 cannot expect that it should be as perfect as in the staining of 

 recently dead organisms, for the currents and frequent chemical 

 changes following vital action must disturb the regular deposi- 

 tion of the alkaline colouring matter. 



The next step is thus narrated in Dr. Beale's own 

 words : 



" Not very long after the appearance of Lord S. G. Osborne's 

 paper in the ' Quarterly Journal of Micros. Science/ on the 

 wheat plant, 1856, I began staining animal tissues, as Gerlach 

 and others had done before me. At this time I was injecting 

 tissues with glycerine, and preserving them in the same fluid. 

 Naturally, the carmine tinting was tried with glycerine. Tissues 

 so prepared were very favourable for dissection ; and, as many 

 were prepared in the same manner, they were examined in 

 series. The distinction between germinal matter and formed 



