90 PARTICULAR CONSIDERATIONS ON THE 



each other at the time.* It has likewise been Loted that 

 the globules of the blood are reproduced by the ex- 

 pansion of contained granules ; they are, in short, distinct 

 organisms multiplied by the same fissiparous generation. 

 So that all animated nature may be said to be based ou 

 this mode of origin ; the fundamental form of organic be- 

 ing is a globule, having a new globule forming within 

 itself, by which it is in time discharged, and which is 

 again followed by another and another, in endless succes- 

 sion. It is of course obvious that, if these globules could 

 be produced by any process from inorganic elements, we 

 should be entitled to say that the fact of a transit from the 

 inorganic into the organic had been witnessed in that in- 

 stance ; the possibility of the commencement of animated 

 creation by the ordinary laws of nature might be consi- 

 dered as established. Now it was given out some years 

 ago by a French physiologist, that globules could be pro- 

 duced in albumen by electricity. If, therefore, these glo- 

 bules be identical with the cells which are now held to 

 be reproductive, it might be said that the production of 

 albumen by artificial means is the only s f ep in the process 

 wanting. This has not yet been affected but it is known 

 to be only a chemical process, the mode of which may be 

 any day discovered in the laboratory, and two compounds 

 perfectly co-ordinate, urea and alantoin, have actually 

 been produced. 



In such an investigation as the present, it is not un- 

 worthy of notice, that the production of shell is a natural 

 operation which can be precisely imitated artificially. 

 Such an incrustation takes place on both the outside and 

 inside of the wheel in a bleaching establishment, in which 

 cotton cloth is rinsed free of the lime employed in its pu- 

 rification. From the dressing, employed by the weaver, 

 the cloth obtains the animal matter, gelatin ; this and the 

 lime form the constituents of the incrustation, exactly as 

 in natural shell. In the wheel employed at Catrine, in 

 Ayrshire, where the phenomenon was first observed by 

 the eye of science, it had required ten years to produce a 

 coating the tenth of an inch in thickness. This incrusta- 

 tion has all the characters of shell, displaying a highly 

 polished surface, beautifully iridescent, and, when bro- 



* See Dr. Martin Barry on Fissiparous Generation : Jameson's 

 Journal, Oct., 1843. Appearpnces precisely similar have been 

 detected in the germs of the Crustacea. 



