328 Researches in the Theory and Calculus of Operations, 



tive or linear force against the rotative, which reaches its 

 maximum effect in the metal bismuth (Tyndall,Becquerel). 



In the ages subsequent to the chemical combustion of 

 the elements whose ashes or residua constitute the present 

 crust of the earth, and while the subsidence of its superfi- 

 cial temperature became such as to allow the deposit of 

 successive layers of semifluid substances of various degrees 

 of consistence upon the bottoms of seas, lakes and rivers, 

 the kind of matter recently named bathybius could have its 

 inchoation. Just as each material element could only reach 

 its solid state at the fitting temperature, so this bathybian 

 substance must wait its turn in the cooling process ; and as 

 there were many different kinds of the former substances, 

 so there would doubtless occur many different layers of 

 bathybius possessing different capabilities of change. In- 

 fluenced by the varying terrestrial warmth, and acted upon 

 4 by the heat of the sun in shallow marine, lacustrine and 

 fluviatile borders, it is conceivable that the susceptible kind 

 of compound substance in question could be quickened into 

 oscillating activity, of a species peculiar to each particular 

 stratum and the condition of time and place afforded. An 

 indefinite variety of races could thus be contemporaneously 

 engendered, and subsequently and successively followed by 

 yet other indefinite numbers, evolved from deeper layers 

 under an improving climate. In this manner we may sup- 

 pose that vital substance or protoplasm (Beale) was first 

 formed. Cell-development is the first step in the ensuing 

 series of operations. As the electro-magnetic force is in- 

 herent to every atom as well as to the entire mass, a line or 

 congeries of a few such cells will take a positive and nega- 

 tive or polar termination, imaged in the form of a liquid 

 solenoid or magnet, which, like the solenoid or magnet, 

 will have its neutral centre ; and as the particles of a liquid 

 or semifluid are readily separable, we have the formation 

 of a positive and a negative polar pair, of the head of a male 



