362 
— 
confirm Haeckel’s discovery of starch in Radiolarians ; objec- 
tions which rendered the whole matter so utterly dubious that no 
botanist had ever accepted it, although its importance, espe- 
cially to diseiples of Schwendener, is obviously great. Nor is 
my theory of reciprocal accommodation entitled to supersede 
that held by Cieakowski, and formerly by Brandt, of simple 
parasitism of the yellow bodies, until it has been proven (1) that 
animal; containing alge are actually successful beyond their 
fellows in the struggle for exi-te.ce, (2) that the starch is rapidly 
consumed, and (3) that the alge are of importance in the func- 
tion of respiration, for which, again, it is necessary to show (a) 
the evolution of oxygen by the algz, (4) the absorption of a 
large percentage by the animal, and (c) the displacement of the 
respiratory pigment by the alge when the former is normally 
present. 
Such being the points of Dr. Brandt’s paper, and of my own 
as compared with it, Prof. Moseley will doubtless be the first to 
see that he has been mistaken in assuming, from his perusal of 
their abstracts, that the main points of the latter have been 
anticipated. I must, however, sincerely thank him for so cour- 
teously calling my attention to my ignorance of Dr. Brandt’s 
interesting paper, which I regret having failed to review in its 
prope: order, especially as 1 should then have avoided the em- 
ployment of a new generic name. 
It is perhaps scarcely necessary to add that although its publi- 
cation has unfortunately been delayed, my paper, together with 
other new material, was forwarded from Naples on October 26 
last to the medical faculty of this University, as trustees for the 
quinquennial Ellis physiology prize. PATRICK GEDDES 
Botanical Laboratory, University of Edinburgh, February 11 
My friend Prof, Moseley’s communication in NATURE, vol. 
xxy. p. 338, induces me to send you the following remarks on 
Mr. Patrick Geddes’ interesting and important paper with the 
above title which appeared in NATURE, vol. xxv. p. 303, and 
which I should otherwise have deferred noticing until I could 
publish a faller account of the whole subject. 
As mentioned by Geddes, Cienkowski in 1871 clearly pointed 
out that the yellow cells in some Radiolaria were parasitic alge 
(using this adjective in the sense of living within other animals or 
plants, or their tissues, z.e. taking up house-room), Geza Entz of 
Klausenburg, in 1876 (February) seems next to have called atten- 
tion to the subject, but, as he mentions in the Aiologisches 
Centralblatt for January 20, 1882, his paper being published in 
the Magyar tongue, has been hardly known or indeed accessible 
to the scientific world outside of his Fatherland. Touching on 
the views of Fhrenberg, Fred. Cohn and Stein, as to the nature of 
the green granules in Infusoria, Entz shows by a series of obser- 
vations the chemical nature (by reagents) of some of these green 
bodies, and that some continue to live after the death of their 
hosts, growing and developing until their total evolution proved 
them to be forms of univellular Alzee, such as Palmella, Gloeo- 
cystis, &c., &c, and justified the suspicion that they were 
“independent orgauisms that had forced their way into and tem- 
porarily enjoyed the hospitality of their hosts.” He also shows 
that colourless Infusoria supplied with Palmellaceous cells 
rapidly become infected. In a note added to the translation of his 
paper in the journal above quoted, Entz mentions his later dis- 
covery of ‘‘nuclei’’ in these cells, and very correctly reiterates 
that they are but stages in the evolution of Alzz, and not 
species ia the ordinary acceptation of that word. In 1877 
(February), in ignorance of Prof. Entz’s paper, I published an 
account of a green alga living as a guest in the fronds of 
other alge, and also described its minute spores entering into 
and growing within the structures of Epistylis and Vagini- 
cola, even figuring some adult forms within the lorica of 
V. crystallina and throughout the frond of the bright red 
Polysiphonia urceolata, aud 1 ventured to suggest that these 
observations might throw some light on the Lichen-gonidia 
question, In 1881 (November) K, Brandt read a paper giving 
the result of a series of observations on the symbiosis (Zesam- 
menieben) of alge and ani vals before the Physiological Society 
of Berlin, an abstract of which was published in the Biologisches 
Centralblatt (December 15, 1881). La-tly comes the valuable 
paper of Mr. P. Geddes, in which he to a large extent confirms 
the observations of the previous labourers in this field of research. 
It may not be out of place to this very shore historical sketch 
to add that investigations in reference to the minute alga, 
referred by me to Cohn’s geuus Chlorochytrium, now for several 
years continued—have enabled me to add many fresh instaaces 
NATURE 
_ [Fed. 16, 1882 
of its spores finding house room in the bodies of animals, and of 
their accommodating themselves to the various circumstances of 
their “surroundings,” when small they are generally greenest, 
and often the function of assimilation seems carried on in them 
to that extent as apparently to check their function of develop- 
ment. ‘These observations I look forward to publishing in the 
Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, where my earlier 
memoir appeared, 
I make no reference here to the occurrence of chlorophyll 
bodies in animals apparently quite independent of the presence 
of vegetable cells, as brought to our notice by the researches of 
Sorby, Lankester, Moseley, and uthers. This, I take it, is not 
Symbiosism. E. PERCEVAL WRIGHT 
On an Experimental Form of Secondary Cell 
THE following description of a lead secondary cell exhibits so 
beautifully the part performed by the coating of red oxide of 
lead covering the new-made plates of Faure’s accumulators, in 
forming them and in afterwards charging and discharging them, 
that I have no doubt that a trial of its experimental construction 
will interest those of your readers by whom improvements of the 
Faure’s cell, in respect of retentiveness and capacity, and espe- 
cially of durability, are regarded as useful objects of search, and 
as an important desideratum. 
About four ounces of No. 5 lead-shot, cleaned and amalga- 
mated to brightness, are placed at the bottom of a 10-oz. glass 
cell or beaker, s» as to cover it to a depth of about half an inch, 
a loop of stout and clean lead wire having already been laid 
there flat, with its long straight part reaching vertically up the 
inner side of the cell to serve as a terminal for a binding screw. 
The straight part of the wire is lacquered in the manner usual 
with instrument-makers (while hot) thickly with shell-lac varnish 
to protect it down to the point where it turns into a loop, from 
acid action. The counter-plate of the cell is a thin horizontal 
lead one, suspended about an inch over the surface of the shots 
below by a strip of sufficient breadth and strength projecting 
from it up the inner face of the cell, to be bent over the top 
edge, as a carrier, and there provided with a binding screw. 
Before introducing it, one or two ounces of powdered minium, 
or red-lead, are thrown int») the dilute sulphuric acid of the 
cell, and by a little gentle stirring, followed by very quick sub- 
sidence, this powder spreads itself evenly over the shot. When 
the liquid is clear, the counter-plate is introduced and the cell is 
coupled up to two small Grove’s cells in series, so as to make 
the shots its anode, by connecting them with the platinum ex- 
tremity of the exciting battery. 
The action of the dilute sulphuric acid upon the red lead 
when immersed in it, besides disengagement of a little heat, and 
of a little contaminating carbonic acid, is partly to separate and 
partly to convert it into a mixture of the binoxide of lead and 
white lead sulphate, the two forming together a sombre red- 
brown powder forming a protecting layer over the stratum of 
metallic shot. Hydrogen is given off on the ccuiterplate, but 
no oxygen gas makes its appearance at the bottom of the cell as 
the action of the exciting current proceeds ; the nascent activity 
of the strongly ozonised oxygen of the pair seems to be entirely 
spent in oxidising the lead-sulphate already existing, and in con- 
verting it into lead-binoxide. The whole of the red powder- 
layer in the mean time grows uniformly and very slowly darker, 
until in about half-an-hour its ruddy brown colour has been 
completely toned down and deepened into that of the dark puce- 
coloured lead binoxide, 
At the same time a singular action is proceeding among the 
metallic shot. A sort of snow of white lexd-sulphate is forming on 
their summits and fal.ing off them by its weight, as if showered 
down upon them out of the murky mass above ; and there is no 
doubt that the presence of the minium layer serves to produce, 
through the medium of the lead-sulphate already there, a true 
corrosion of the lead, mainly conducted, as it would seem, by 
the acid which the process of binoxidation displaces from the 
superjacent sulphaie., Out of contact with the incumbent 
powder, the bright metallic surfaces of the shots are only slightly 
dimmed and taruished with a thin film of white sulphate, and it 
is the most remarkable feature of the process that this white film 
and the white caps of sulphate formed upon the upper shots are 
not at all discoloured, whereas without the overlying red lead 
protectioa, the lead surfaces would be immediately sooted and 
beclouded over with a dark-brown coat of lead-binoxide. 
The nascent energy of the oxygen is evidently suppressed, 
and it would sezm that the current takes its way by preference 
