160 THE PHENOMENON OF 



possible, when a cell-membrane is very young and delicate. 

 With the commencement of fructitication a new law of 

 division displays itself, namely, a successive division of 

 the contents in the three directions of space, beginning 

 with two perpendicular divisions crossing at right angles, 

 which are followed by the horizontal division, and some- 

 times by another perpendicular division. These divisions 

 succeed one another so rapidly, that it is seldom possible 

 to see the first divisions without the last. Even this 

 circumstance renders it improbable that a formation of 

 cell-membrane takes place at once after every division, 

 enclosing the segments ; and the phenomena occurring at 

 the birth of the germ -cells, which I shall subsequently 

 describe, show completely the inadmissibility of such a 

 supposition. By progressive division, first two, then four, 

 then eight, and finally sixteen cells originate, in the way 

 described, in the individual link-cell. If each division 

 were immediately followed by a secretion of cell-mem- 

 brane, the originally simple chamber of the mother-cell 

 must become divided, successively, into two, four, eight, 

 and sixteen chambers, the soft plates of cell-membrane of 

 the newly-formed walls, since they would immediately 

 touch, must grow together, and the last parts (the germ- 

 cells) produced by the process of division would thus be 

 placed in a framework formed of a four-fold enclosure, 

 and solidified by the cohesion of the vesicles packed one 

 inside another. Not the slightest trace of such an 

 apparatus of chambers can be seen at the birth of the 

 germ-cells. If, then, the separate divisions of the contents 

 are, nevertheless, followed by formation of cell-membrane, 

 the entire series of special parent-cells must, in the few 

 hours in which division and birth takes place, not only 

 be formed, but also immediately re-absorbed, an assump- 

 tion which here, as in other cases of transitory cell- 

 formation,* would appear altogether arbitrary, and 



* The absence of formation of cell-membrane from many generations of 

 cells may be ascertained with especial clearness in many Palmellace«, in 

 which, instead of a thin, firm, cell-membrane, a thick, soft, gelatinous 



