54 botanical gazette. [ March, 



ratt was to be just a bit careless, to say the least, in arrang- 

 ing loose material, to believe implicitly that the Douglas ticket 

 was rightly placed, against such cumulative evidence to the 



contrary. 



Rockford, III. 



Intracellular Pangenesis. 



DR. J. W. MOLL. 



This is the title of a book by Prof. Hugo de Vries, which 

 has just appeared in the German language. 1 and will no 

 doubt create considerable interest. The subject with which 

 it deals is one of the highest importance, and of the manner 

 in which it has been treated I will try to give a short account. 



By many investigators of organized nature, and especially 

 by those who have studied the phenomena of heredity, the 

 necessity has been felt of assuming that hereditary charac- 

 ters in animals and plants are the visible effects produced by 

 the nature of those substances which constitute living organ- 

 isms. Hence many speculations have arisen about the struc- 

 ture which these substances may possess, and about the man- 

 ner of their dispersion through the living body. However 

 hopeless such attempts to penetrate into one of the greatest 

 mysteries of nature may at first sight appear, some light cer- 

 tainly has been thrown on this matter through the exertions 

 ot several distinguished naturalists. 



Among these Charles Darwin, without doubt, ought to be 

 named in the very first place, and the chief object of this 

 book is to induce in its readers a more just and higher appre- 

 ciation ot one of the most fertile conceptions of this illustri- 



OliS nnthnr ^ 



But others have studied the same subject, and of these 

 principal are Herbert Spencer, Haeckel, Nageli, and 



the 

 Weism 



rfw£~ V" 1 -' com P ara tive and critical consideration of the 



W U t? T t0 V r h \ ch the above named ^hors h^e been 

 led is the subject of the first part of Prof, de Vries's book. 



orovkinnJl 1 ? P lac( \ he r ably shows that Darwin's so-called 



two will H \ ^ the f? ° f P an £ en esiV essentially consists of 



two ^ ell denned I and in many respects independent parts : 



l ' AU pere <faary characters of an organism are repre- 



1 Jena, Gustav I'isoher, im~ ~ ~ 



"The Variation of A„ im a. S and Plants under Domestication. Vol. ii. p. 349. 



