Sl mr a i i ll a re ee 
THEIR LIFE AND AFFINITY, 233 
sistency, it appears to have become a confused mass, or an indurated 
green mucus. When the mass is broken and observed through a good 
microscope, the original green corpuscles appear again, but changed in 
form, enveloped in a slimy matter, and interwoven with small transpa- 
rent threads resembling slender colourless glass tubes, and show irregular 
yet visible movements. They approach each other, return again to 
their former position, become entangled with each other, and again dis- 
entangle themselves. If observed at the instant when such movements 
occur with the greatest energy, these little filaments have all the appear- 
ance of diminutive eels; in fact they are in some degree similar to the 
small vermiculations observed in vinegar. We may often discover in 
them even peristaltic motions. The white colour and the motion of these 
filaments last but a certain time. After a few weeks more, the crust 
becomes more solid, uneven, and raised here and there into irregular 
protuberances. The threads (or filaments) become more distinct ; they 
are green, and scattered about without order, chiefly on the most pro- 
minent part of the crust, without however rising over its surface, which 
remains smooth and rather hard to the touch. The crust itself presents 
_ searcely any traces of the original animalcules. 
“Tf the crust be left undisturbed, and the water be now and then, 
but seldom, renewed, the unevennesses of the crust increase and rise in 
a pyramidal form. As soon as the pyramids are formed, the green 
threads, winding irregularly through the unevennesses of the green 
crust, rise also, become developed, and dispose themselves along the 
pyramidal bodies, toward the upper parts of which they become par- 
ticularly visible; the rest is of a gelatinous substance, of a sufficient 
consistence to maintain its form as long as it remains under water. If 
these productions belong to the class of zoophytes, they must be ranked 
among the Tremellz.” ; 
Some have indeed denied the actual production of organized from 
unorganized matter, since distilled water over quicksilver does not pro- 
duce any green matter. But in the first place it is not easy to see why 
ametamorphosis should not be regarded as such because it occurs only 
‘under certain given circumstances ; in the second place, it is also very 
possible that in a process so little favoured even by pure water, the 
quicksilver, on account of its property of counteracting production (a 
property which renders it so useful as medicine), may destroy or pre- 
-yent the infusorial fermentation, as it has been called. 
We think therefore that we are not in error when (combining the 
-consideration of these important changes with our general inquiries 
into unorganized matter,) we recur to the proposition we have before 
daid down, viz. that the multiplicity of the phenomena of nature 
rests upon one wnity ; that nature therefore nowhere presents either an 
absolute difference (for such changes would then be inexplicable), or 
.an absolute identity ; and consequently, if we give the name of sud- 
