10 
INTRODUCTION TO FRESH WATER ALGiE. 
Crystal Palace of glass, and no doubt he is prepared for sportsmen 
who may be inclined to return his fire. Let us look at this chapter 
on the ‘ Dual Hypothesis,’ not that there is anything dual about 
the hypothesis, but only about the subjects of it. Most reasonable 
people have spontaneously remarked that in the controversy, while 
it lasted, on the subject of the dual nature of lichens, the systematic 
lichenologists were ranged on one side, and the morphologists 
pitched over against (and into) them. It, was further noted that 
the question was really one for morphologists to settle, and they 
settled it. To treat the controversy, with Mr. Cooke, as still active 
would be absurd. One might as well describe the battle of 
Balaclava as still in progress because survivors happily remain 
with us. The question was settled, and it was not decided in 
favour of the systematists, headed by Nylander. Mr. Cooke, how- 
ever, digs up the hatchet, and goes for de Bary, Schwendener, and 
the rest, just as if there were some novelty left in his proceedings. 
He fortifies himself with the following inspiring sentence written 
by ‘ Dr. Nylander, the prince of lichenologists’ : — ‘ I have adduced 
that the gonidia and gonimia of lichens constitute a normal organic 
system necessary, and of the greatest physiological importance, so 
that around them we behold the growing (or vegetative) life chiefly 
promoted and active.’ Mr. Cooke quotes this sentence with 
special approval, and if he can understand it, no doubt he is 
entitled to use it. For our own part it appears to us that the man 
who could write a sentence like that is very unlikely to take a lucid 
view of anything. 
“ It is difficult to take seriously the work of any man on Fresh 
Water Alga? who describes, in this year of grace lb90, the symbiosis 
of lichens as a ‘hallucination’ (p. 183). It may be well enough 
— it is intelligible at any rate — that men like Nylander, Krempel- 
huber, and others, cited by Mr. Cooke, who have more or less con- 
fined their studies to systematic lichenology (a branch of study 
differing remotely from systematic botany in its extraordinary and 
absurd methods), — it is well enough that these men should cling to 
their ancient faith, but when an author presents to the public a 
book which professes to teach the form and structure of Fresh W ater 
Algae, it might surely be expected that he should leave this matter 
alone or take a reasonable view of it. Let him point to distinguished 
authorities on Fresh Water Algae who fail to recognize these among 
the ‘ gonidia ’ of lichens ! If Mr. Cooke expects an attentive 
hearing on this matter let him not proclaim his own ignorance. 
“The first 190 pages of this book are of an introductory cha- 
racter. The chapters are on such subjects as collection and 
preservation, cell-increase, polymorphism, asexual and sexual 
reproduction, conjugation, pairing of zoospores, alternation of 
generations, spore germination, spontaneous movements, notable 
phenomena (such as the ‘ breaking of the meres,’ Red Snow, Gory 
Dew, Blood Rain), the dual hypothesis and classification. Over 
the ground covered by this list of subjects, there is, indeed, wanted 
