November 25, 1909]' 



iVA TURE 



lOI 



rises again. This freezing once brouglit about, 

 further and more intense cold has no effect. Brown 

 and Escombe endorsed de Candolle's idea, suggesting 

 that protoplasm may e.\ist in two conditions, the 

 sialic and the kinetic in the former becoming so 

 stable as to be absolutely inert, devoid of any trace of 

 metabolic activity, and yet conserving the potentiality 

 of life. 



It is extremely difficult to decide which of the two 

 theories provides the most satisfactory explanation of 

 the observed phenomena. The conditions which mark 

 the commencement of germination help us, however, 

 to come to a conclusion, though difficulties are met 

 with in either hypothesis. For germination to occur, 

 moisture must be absorbed by the seed ; absorption 

 of oxygen and exhalation of carbon dioxide speedily 

 follow, enzymic action supervenes, and the digestive 

 changes in the reserve food materials can be readily 

 traced. But what is the first result of the absorption 

 of water is not so clear ; is it the resumption of the 

 kinetic condition by the protoplasm, the life of which 

 in all other parts can be seen to be dependent on water, 

 or is it the setting up of the activity of the enzymes, 

 which enables metabolic, and possibly respiratory, 

 changes to take place, such chemical action stimu- 

 lating the latent life to manifestation? 



Certain observations tend to show that the activity 

 commences with changes in the embryo or germ. 

 Van Tieghem, many years ago, endeavoured to excite 

 into activity the endosperm of the castor-oil bean 

 after removing from it every particle of the embryo. 

 In most cases he failed, but in some he claimed to 

 have been successful. The writer, many years after- 

 wards, repeated his experiments, and found that the 

 endosperm could only be quickened when a small 

 portion of the germ was left in contact with it. The 

 changes in this case originated in the embryo. 

 Further observations showed that the earliest sign of 

 germination in the latter is a change in certain cells 

 of its epidermis, which take on the appearances that 

 usually indicate the conversion of a zymogen into an 

 enzyme. The germ appears to start the change by 

 the secretion of an enzyme. It seems justifiable to 

 associate this secretion with the re-assumption of life 

 by the embryo, because, though many enzymes occur 

 in the seed outside the latter, they do not initiate 

 their changes until later. In this particular seed, vital 

 activity is subsequently soon manifested in the tissue 

 of the endosperm, which becomes the scene of very 

 active chemical change, its residual protoplasm 

 growing and secreting certain constituents, particu- 

 larly sugars, which the resting cells do not contain. 

 Brown and Morris showed that a somewhat similar 

 procedure can be observed in the barley grain. The 

 first visible changes are the secretion of enzymes by 

 the scutellum of the germ. The germination once 

 started, other enzymes make their appearance in the 

 endosperm, some arising especially from the aleurone 

 layer underlying the testa. 



.■\ scrutiny of the results of Dixon's experiments on 

 heating the resting seeds points also to the protoplasm 

 as the initiator of the changes. Exposure of his 

 seeds to 105° C. must have destroyed any 

 preformed enzymes unless the cells were abso- 

 lutely devoid of water, a condition hardly likely 

 to be reached. The germinative power fell 

 gradually, or nearly regularly, as the heating was 

 raised to this point, but much remained. When, how- 

 ever, a very slightly higher temperature was reached, 

 about 107° C, the seeds lost it with great suddenness 

 and very irregularly. The injury inflicted by the last 

 two degrees was very different from that which was 

 sustained as the temperature gradually rose to 105° C, 

 and was hardly explicable on the theory of enzyme 

 NO. 2091, VOL. 82] 



destruction. It did not, at any rate, correspond to the 

 progress of their destruction in the laboratory. 



Some experiments recently carried out by Miss 

 White in Prof. Ewart's laboratory at Melbourne bear 

 upon this aspect of the problem. She endeavoured to 

 accelerate the germinative processes in seeds which 

 had but little power of germination by supplying 

 them with additional quantities of enzymes dissolved 

 in the water with which they were kept moist, the 

 coats of the seeds being perforated here and there to 

 allow absorption to take place. Though she examined 

 many in various conditions, the result was always 

 negative. It proved impossible to accelerate germina- 

 tion bv supplying additional quantities of enzyme. 



Experiments made by supplying resting seeds with 

 reagents such as dilute organic acids, which stimulate 

 their secretion of enzymes, also have been found to be 

 without result. 



The idea that enzymes initiate and maintain the 

 process of germination appears, therefore, to be 

 erroneous, and the older view of the sufficiency of 

 the idioplasm of the cells still holds the field, in spite 

 of the difliculties that have been raised by the experi- 

 ments with temperature. The theory of static and 

 kinetic states of protoplasm explains little or nothing; 

 it is really scarcely more than a statement of the 

 problem in new terms. 



J. Reynolds Green. 



DR. W. J. RUSSELL, F.R.S. 



WILLIAM J.\MES RUSSELL was born in May, 

 1830, at Gloucester, where his father was a 

 banker. He was educated at private schools — Dr. 

 Wrt ford's at Bristol, and afterwards at Mr. Bache's at 

 Birmingham. In passing, it may be noted that this 

 was before the educational revival that produced and 

 was furthered by the Public Schools Commission of 

 1859, and that in those days there were very many 

 private schools where scholarship was carried to quite 

 as high a level, and when the conditions of out-of- 

 school life were in some respects much better than in 

 most of the public schools of the time. 



After leaving school in 1847, Russell entered 

 L^niversity College, London, where he studied 

 chemistry under Thomas Graham and Williamson. 

 In 1851 he was appointed the first demonstrator of 

 chemistry under Frankland in the then newly-founded 

 Owens College, and helped to plan and superintend the 

 building of the first chemical laboratory of the college. 

 This laboratory, built on what had been the garden 

 attached to the original college building (Mr. Cobden's 

 old house in Quay Street), was the cradle of the great 

 Manchester School of Chemistry, which has become 

 as famous in its way as the Manchester School of 

 Politics. After two years at Owens College, Russell 

 went to Heidelberg, where he worked under Bunsen 

 from the autumn of 1853 to the end of the session 

 1854-5. During his stay at Heidelberg, he graduated 

 as Ph.D. After his return to England, he lectured at 

 the Midland Institute, Birmingham, and near the end 

 of 1857 came again to London to act as assistant to 

 Williamson, his former teacher, at L'niversity College. 

 He was associated with Williamson for several years, 

 a considerable part of the time being occupied with 

 working out and bringing to a convenient practical 

 form a method of gas-analysis whereby the corrections 

 involved in taking account of variation of pressure and 

 temperature were in great measure eliminated. The 

 results of this investigation were embodied in several 

 papers published in the Journal of the Chemical 

 Society and elsewhere, and the form of apparatus 

 finally arrived at was the forerunner of the most im- 

 proved modern types of gas-analysis apparatus and 



