392 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [DECEMBER 
that the earth was dark when life began, and that chlorophyll-free ° 
bacteria, probably those capable of oxidizing methane, were the 
earliest forms of life with which we are familiar today. JENSEN 
derived the blue-green algae from the sulphur bacteria, the fungi 
from the oxidizing bacteria by way of the Actinomycetes, and the 
‘ higher bacteria from the earliest nitrogen-reducing organisms. 
KLIGLER (20) was also of the opinion that bacteria may well have 
been the earliest forms of life, and he placed the methane-oxidizing 
type at the base of his tree. BREED, ConN, and Baker (4) pointed 
out that there is no proof that the world was dark when life began; 
that in case it was light the ancestors of the blue-green algae or of 
the phototrophic pigment bacteria, which use sunlight to metabolize 
organic substances, may have been the most primitive forms; or 
that the most primitive form may be entirely unknown tous. Thus 
we see that because of the discovery of the existence of autotrophic 
bacteria the old question of the origin of the bacterial group is 
, again open. 
_ When the synthesis of inorganic substances into organic material 
‘was thought to be possible only by the aid of chlorophyll, the 
natural trend of evolutionary reasoning led to the derivation of 
other forms of life from simple chlorophyll-containing ones. Bacte- 
Tia apparently are simpler than the most simple chlorophyll-bearing 
algae. They were therefore thought to be degenerate. Workers 
who saw in them affinities with the chlorophyll-free fungi were 
not careful to state what their relationship with the fungi really 
might have been. The reader is usually left with the impression 
that they are in an intermediate position or related to the higher 
fungi. Meyer, who excluded the Thiobacteria, Chlamydobacteria, 
and Myxobacteria from his Eubacteria or bacteria proper, placed his 
group as the second class of the Eumycetes next to the Phycomy- 
cetes or algal fungi. CLaypore (7) considered both bacteria and 
fungi to be derived from the leptothrix-tuberculosis group. 
A rather suprising paper has recently appeared by BERGSTRAND 
(2), who has observed the budding and branching of Coryne- 
bacterium and other forms, and believes that the bacteria are closely 
related to the fungi. Budding and binary fission are not so different 
in their nature that they should be considered very important 
