Miscellanies. 20T 



bles, globulous and vesicular, so generally distributed througbout na- 

 ture, and which often tinge with a blood-red color, the surface of 

 calcareous rocks — the surface of water, both fresh and salt — snow 

 and ice — the crystals of sea-salt — and, finally, as we proceed imme- 

 diately to observe, the translucent and colorless substance of red 

 agates ; vegetables which are more particularly designated by the 

 names of Protococcus nivalis, Proiococcus kermesinus, Agardii, and 

 Hczmatococcus, &c. These small vegetables, though larger by a half 

 than the globules of the blood, still have with them a great analogy as 

 it regards their organization, and probably also their chemical compo- 

 sition. A transparent and colorless vesicle, (or perhaps two, the one 

 included in the other,) perfectly spherical, and filled with red and 

 reproducing globules, forms the whole of the organization of these 

 small vesicular vegetables, which, with some other analogous ones, 

 mark the first eff'orts of organization, and seem to be nothing more 

 than first attempts, or the representatives of the elementary or con- 

 stituent organs of the cellular masses of more complex vegetables 

 and animals. When the minute internal globules of these small veg- 

 etables begin to increase within the maternal vesicle, to become repro- 

 ductive serainules, they cause the vesicle to assume very much the 

 mammillated aspect of a strawberry. According to this mode of de- 

 velopment, is it not probable that those blood-globules, of animals 

 which, on account of their shape, are called strawberry globules, are 

 also produced by the increase of a certain number of the red globules 

 which they contain ? All my microscopic researches compel me not 

 only to admit this analogy, but likewise to think that the red globules 

 of the globules of the blood are the seminules of those organized 

 bodies which are destined to replace, and sometimes to multiply, the 

 old globules of the blood, as they become extinct and cease to live, 

 as individuals, in the midst of the serum which serves as their habit- 

 ation, and in which they procure their nourishment. — Ih. 



36. Cause of the Red Color of Agates. — The red color of agates is 

 owing to a number, greater or smaller, of Protococcus Icermesinus 

 accumulated together, or more frequently reduced to their small red 

 globules (seminules) agglomerated or coagulated, and distributed, ac- 

 cording to certain circumstances, in the colorless structure of these 

 siliceous compounds. Since we have now been considering, analogi- 

 cally, those innumerable Proctucoccus kermesinus, and the red globules 

 they contain, I beg leave to add, that microscopic and comparative in- 

 vestigations which I have recently made, and which I purpose to pub- 

 lish elsewere in all their details, have clearly demonstrated, that the 

 various colors, rose, orange, blood-red, and reddish-brown, (varieties 



