92 SUMMARY OF CUERENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 



2. Development of Monads. — Under this term are here included 

 only low organisms of the form of swarm-spores, about 4 micro- 

 millimetres in diameter. These become very slow in their move- 

 ments, and proceed to reproduce by fission in very concentrated 

 emulsions, but when transplanted to a dilute liquid become very 

 active, and exhibit the peculiarity of attracting particles of various 

 sizes and exjielling them again with vigour, a jirocess set down to an 

 electric energy, residing in its greatest power at the base of the 

 flagellum. Investigations extending over two years failed in dis- 

 covering another mode of increase but that by fission. Repeated experi- 

 ments, however, of which the object — ^viz. that of discovering a 

 method of genesis which dispenses with any antecedent organism — 

 is not concealed, were, so the author relates, at length rewarded. 

 Some " aleurou-granules " from hazel-nut kernels mashed-up in 

 water, were observed to resolve themselves into granular jelly-masses 

 of globular form ; from this mass the monad is said to de- 

 velope, or several may arise from a single mass. A large monad with 

 a proboscis was seen to arise from an aleuron-granule by fission of its 

 substance and extausion of the gelatinous material at two opposite 

 points, forming a fusiform body ; if the formative mass is larger than 

 the normal monad it divides and forms two. Oily drops of pro- 

 toplasm also become converted into monads. The production of 

 these organisms is dependent on the time during which the seed has 

 been left to dry in its shell. Monads were also produced from a 

 mixture of sugar and stream or spring water and a phosphate, by con- 

 traction or fission of the flocculent precipitate contained in it. Two 

 sizes of monads are produced from a solution of Umbelliferous seeds 

 in spring water ; the larger are derived from the smaller. Ciliated 

 Infusoria are said to have been seen to develope from zooglcea- 

 masses ; the process occurs in the early morning, between 1 and 4 a.m. (!) 

 Leucophrys is generated with especial ease from water, sugar, and a 

 phosphate. Thundery evenings in August and September are the 

 best times for such developments to occur ; monads and ciliated 

 Infusoria are mutually exclusive, and do not develop from the same 

 solution. 



3. Effects of Contact are the subject of the third and last series of 

 investigations. Krasan finds that the development of bacillus in 

 infusions of seeds in boiling water is almost entirely dej^endent on 

 the retention in the fluid of the solid bodies used to make the 

 infusion ; but that the presence of all kinds of solid bodies in infusions 

 of other kinds considerably facilitates and is indispensable to their 

 development ; the result of this is thus stated. (1) Solid particles 

 and heterogeneous bodies in a solution of formative organic sub- 

 stances exercise a favourable influence on the process of formation by 

 their presence, and being in contact with the solution, inasmuch as 

 they accelerate the interchange of matter, and give a definite direction 

 to the organizing activity of the molecular forces. (2) The nature 

 of the foreign bodies is not without influence on the size, form, con- 

 sistence, colour, and mobility of the organisms which are produced. 



The author invokes the action of physico-chemical forces in 



