40 J. W. SLATER, ESQ., F.C.S., P.E.S., ON 



that tliere is mucli vii'tu(3 in an //'. Those who make this 

 sugg-estiou merely sliow their want of acquaintance with 

 protoplasm. This substance has never yet been found 

 except in phmts or animals, living or dead. Search the 

 inorganic world through and you will not find it. The chief 

 source for it is in a fungus known as Ethalium septicum, 

 growing on the heaps of spent bark thrown out from tanneries. 

 It is not a simple substance. It does not consist chiefly of 

 albumen or gelatine. It is composed of no fewer than forty-five 

 constituents, namely, plastine, myosine, peptone, peptonoid, 

 pepsine, mecleine, letheine, guanine, sarcene, xanthene, am- 

 monium carbonate, paracholesterine, traces of cholesterine, 

 ethalium resin, a yellow colouring matter, glycogen, a non- 

 reductive sugar, oleic, stearic, palmitic, butyric and carbonic 

 acids, glycerides and paraglyceridcs of the fatty acids, 

 calcium stearate, palmitate, oleate, lactate, oxalate, acetate, 

 formiate, phosphate, carbonate, and sulphate, magnesiimi and 

 potassium phosphate, sodium chloride, iron (in some un- 

 known state), and water ! How are all these substances 

 (many of which are in themselves very complex and are to 

 be obtained only from pre-existing plants and animals) to 

 come together and to combine ? Bj chance ? Protoplasm is, 

 in fact, not the cause but a consequence of life. And when 

 Ave have it before us how are we to set up in it those mole- 

 cular motions which we recognise in living behigs ? As a 

 half-way step towards animation I have taken the unimpreg- 

 nated eggs of female moths and have exposed them to 

 difierenr temperatures, to different rays of light, to feeble 

 electric cvu'rents, to the action of magnets, to gentle 

 mechanical movements. Gut all these methods proved vain 

 The eggs dried up and became decomposed, and on micros- 

 copic examination they were found not to have taken the 

 slightest step towards life. 



23. We are Sf)metimes told that at one time men of science 

 doubted tlie possibility of forming organic compounds 

 artificially until AVoehler produced urea from dead matter, 

 and that we may, perhaps, some day be able to manufacture 

 not merely organic matter bnt actual organisms. It will be 

 soon enough to consider this case when it shall have arisen. 

 Up to the present day chemists have produced artificially 

 secondary products, excretions, pigments, results of decom- 

 position ; but they have never obtahied any of the primary 

 compounds in which life seems to iidiere. ]\Iucli less have 

 they produced organisms, orgam'sed structures, of whatever 



