522 A BOTANICAL EXCURSION IN MY OFFICE. 
air, and changing them into organic principles capable of 
life. But to do this, light is necessary ; it is only by the 
aid of that force that the chlorophyl can awaken into life 
the clod and breeze. Without light, — 
“The world were void, 
The populous and the powerful were a lump 
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless, 
A lump of death, —a chaos of hard clay.” 
Somewhere in the protoplasm is generally to be found 
a spot of great refractive power, the nucleus; in the cell 
before us mayhap we can find it close to the wall, may- 
be it is absent. The nucleus is nothing more or less 
than a little solid protoplasmic ball. Much importance 
is assigned to it by most authorities, and in fact it, when 
present, plays a very important role in the life-history of 
the cell. But in these alge it is often absent, and the 
truth seems to be, that the primordial utricle, nucleus, 
and general protoplasm are identical in constitution and 
formative powers. In other words, that they are differ- 
ent manifestations of the same substance. 
Now let us place one of our filaments under a high 
power and examine it closely. Under a + objective, 
we will plainly perceive a very curious phenomenon 
going on inside of some of the cells. Notice among the 
general semifluid contents a number of minute dark 
specks or dots; these are minute granules of protoplasm. 
See! they are in active motion,—some are busy travel- 
ling from one end of the cell to the other, and all along it 
they are passing one another. But the mass of them are 
collected in two groups at the ends of their cells; all of 
them busy bustling about in all directions amongst them- 
selves, reminding one of a hive of bees about to settle. 
We have thus in our little plant had a sight of a Pro 
cess, which, variously modified, is probably present in all 
