652 
POPULAE SCIENCE REVIEW. 
round is young, nearly all, except those near the base of the leaf, will be 
seen to contain a gmnious mass of a golden-brown colom*, which entirely fills 
it, with the exception of a small empty space at each end, the cell-wall being 
of a pale green. On investigation, this brown substance gave the following 
reactions : — 
1. Simply heated, it turned bright gveen. 
2. Hydrochloric acid had but little effect upon it cold, but when heated, it 
dissolved it, and turned it a very pale-green colour. 
3. Sulphuric acid turned it first a bright green, then pale yellowish- 
brown. 
4. Iodine turned it bright green. On the addition of sulphuric acid, it 
became dark reddish-brown, small cpiantities of gas being given off. 
5. Pemitrate of mercury (MiUon’s test) rapidily dissolved it without 
changing the colour. When heated, it turned into a pale-yeUow transparent 
mass. 
6. Chloriodide of zinc (Schultz’s test) turned it pale green. 
7. Alcohol turned it green, but did not dissolve it. 
8. Ether — the same. 
9. Pettenkofer’s test. The syrup turned it pale green. On the addition 
of the sulphuric acid, gas was given off copiously, and the colour became 
bright green, which turned with heat to a reddish-brown. 
With tests 4 and 6, the cell-wall showed the characteristic reaction of 
cellulose very distinctly. From these investigations Captain Hutton was of 
opinion that this substance was merely some modification of chlorophyll, and 
he pointed out that, both in colour and behaviour with re-agents, it seemed to 
be very similar to, if not quite identical with, the endochrome of the Dioto- 
macece. Unfortunately the specimens of Captain Hutton, exhibited, had 
been kept in a tumbler of w'ater for nearly a month, and consequently the 
peculiar colour of the cell-contents had in a great measure disappeared, and 
the whole had become more or less green. 
Are there Spiral Vessels in Cotton-fibres ? — This question has for some time 
past excited controversy in Manchester among the local savans. It was 
thought by certain experimenters that when cotton had been soaked in 
Schweitzer’s ammoniacal solution of copper, the spiral vessels became ap- 
parent. Mr. Dancer, however, denies the existence of these structures in 
cotton-fibre, and considers that the spiral apparatus which has been described 
by Messrs. O’Neil and Heys can be clearly traced to a niechanical action 
which the solvent exercises on the vegetable ceh. 
Amceborlike movements of Plant-cells. — Mr. Archer, of the Dublin Natural 
History Society, has a valuable memoir upon this interesting subject in the 
last number of the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science. He does 
not confine himself to the consideration of Zoospores, bodies which might 
a priori be regarded as possessing powers of motion, but directs attention to 
cells like those of Mesotcenium mirificum. Here the contents of a single cell 
escape without conjugation through an opening effected by the raisiug up 
of a valve or lid-like portion of the parent cell During this act, the emergmg 
contents are often much constricted by reason of the narrowness of the 
aperture through which they make an exit, and after emergence the mass 
becomes rounded. Now Mesotcenmm is a plant which does not generate 
