124 THE ORIGIN OF LIFE 



undoubtedly, like some crystalloids, the power of 

 assimilating from their surroundings, and thus may, 

 like radiobes, approximate more closely to living 

 types than any crystalline or colloid bodies hitherto 

 observed. They appear to come more directly within 

 the sphere of the cytologist than that of the crystallo- 

 grapher, or the organic chemist, and to possess more 

 in common with a living organism than any artificial 

 cells that have as yet been obtained. 



M. Dubois has suggested that barium may be 

 nothing more than an allotropic form of radium. 

 This suggestion is most probably correct, in so far as 

 they belong to the same series ; but it may also be 

 one of the disintegration products of radium, just as 

 this is a disintegration product of uranium. 



Uranium, according to Strutt and Boltwood, is 

 gradually transformed into radium, which later on, 

 as Eutherford has shown, goes through various 

 stages, and finally becomes converted, as Eamsay 

 and Soddy have found, into inert helium. It may 

 be that barium is one of the stages through which 

 the emanation has to pass. 



It is of importance in this matter to bear in mind 

 that cultures of uranium consist of several horizontal 

 layers or strata which are totally distinct from each 

 other and several millimetres apart ; such internal 

 growths within the medium itself I would account 

 for as the necessary result of the transformation — as 

 the uranium diff"uses down.into the medium, of barium 

 into radium and other culture-producing bodies. 



It is all the more remarkable, as the transforming 



