34 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
u Another most important vibrionic process — and which is as 
yet equally unknown to didactic science — is that of massive 
vibrionic co-cementation , as we find it, e.g. as a mass of 
6 matted ’ interlaced or entangled, and as it were 4 coagulated ’ 
vibrios, e.g. in the 6 mother of vinegar,’ or 4 phycomater : ’ 
forming a tough and apparently fibreless gelatine, uniform in 
all directions, and whence on the surface of the vinegar — as 
from the fetid scums of our hydrant-water likewise — little 
sprigs, like air-vesicles, become manifest, and that, rapidly en- 
larging in bulk and lengthwise, from their ramified fibre (and 
which under water readily dissect into 4 yeast’ joints') erect 
the blue tufted 4 pencils ’ — of globular-beaded single-file-spores 
borne on fascicled joints — directly into the air. After being 
swelled by moisture, these beadlets become oval and, being ex- 
posed to the air, thick-coated. When such swelled and in- 
durated spores of the blue pencil-tufts so abundantly found on 
rotten apples , lemons , sweet potatoes , old cheese , &c., drop off 
into the water or a fermentable liquid , they often directly 
enlarge into stemless, floating globular seed-sporangia (mucor) 
containing the blackish, globular seed within the leathery 
mucor vessel. But when such blue tuftlets ( 4 Penicillium glau- 
cum,’ 4 crustaceum,’ &c.), e.g. as forming floating islets on old 
coffee and tea-decoctions, become entrained 4 under water,’ the 
beadlets become confluent by macerating their coats, and, 
under cover of an exuded floating scab, the whole vibrionic 
mass of liberated contents now constitutes a polypous , wriggling 
pulp— like crawling snods — and each constitutive vibrio (in- 
dividually coated and forming a sort of short, vibratile sprig , 
called a 4 bacterium ’) by individual lengthwise growth increases 
into a short automatously travelling and afterwards exceedingly 
long, but still as fine 4 leptomitous ’ or individual fibre of the 
4 mephitic ’ water-rot of our pools and gutters ” ! * Such a 
lucid (?) explanation of polymorphic fungi as this extract 
contains can scarce fail to commend itself ; the marvel is that 
the whole subject has not been cast aside by intelligent men as 
quite unworthy of serious attention. 
We are unable, within the limits prescribed for this article, 
to explain the relations which subsist between such fungi as 
the 44 red-rust ” and 44 mildew ” of corn, and the barberry 44 clus- 
ter-cups ; ” or between the yellow rust and the black brand of the 
bramble and rose. In other words, the polymorphism of the 
TJredines and their allies. This is less to be regretted, since 
there has not, during the past four or five years, been any im- 
portant additions to our knowledge on this subject, and what 
* u The Zymotic Fungus.” Experimental Investigations by Dr. T. C. Hib 
gard. St. Louis, Mo. 
