108 Scientific Proceedings (119). 



from a condition of extreme permeability to one in which solutions 

 of common salts may not pass through it. It is of course to be 

 recalled that not only does the wall change with its growth but 

 that it may do so quite irregularly so that the wall may have 

 impermeable areas and others of ready permeability. 



Some possibilities of the influence of the wall on the exchange 

 between the protoplasm and its environment are suggested by 

 effects in negative osmose which have been obtained by the use of 

 the artificial cell, this term negative osmose being used to denote 

 increase in volume of the solvent in the cell against a solution of 

 higher concentration external to the cell. Thus when an osmom- 

 eter comprising only the outer clay or wooden wall of the arti- 

 ficial cell is filled with water and immersed in a solution of calcium 

 chloride at various concentrations ranging from 0.0035 M. upward 

 negative action ensues, the contents increase in volume and 

 exudation takes place. If the cell be given its artificial plasmatic 

 lining the effect continues, overbalancing the positive osmotic 

 action of the colloidal components dissolved in the cell. If the 

 electrolyte be placed in the cell its action dominates and exosmosis, 

 being "negative" osmose, ensues. These results so far as they 

 have been examined being consonant with those of Bartell, who 

 has recently made many measurements of negative osmose through 

 porcelain plates. 



A summarization of the facts and conclusions cited in this 

 paper may be made as follows: 



1. All substances which may appear in the cell in the colloidal 

 condition of reversible gels must be taken into account in any 

 adequate interpretation of cell-action, particularly growth. Albu- 

 min, pentosans, soaps and lipins are thus to be taken into con- 

 sideration in cell-mechanics. The findings of Hansteen-Cranner 

 to the effect that lipins accumulate in quantity at the periphery 

 of the protoplast and run in a mesh work from cell to cell and 

 through the cell does not justify his conclusion that such material 

 is the ground substance of living matter. The actual identity of 

 living matter is not a question of structure but is one of integrated 

 action, not one of equilibria but one of energetics. 



2. All attempts to find separable membranes to protoplasts by 

 dissection, and by microscopic and ultramicroscopic methods have 



