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Transactions of the Society. 
physiological phases of the cell. He says, “It is possible, nay 
probable, that in one and the same cell a portion of the network may 
form a true alveolar structure, such as is described by Butschli, while 
other portions may, at the same time, be differentiated into actual 
fibres.” This view is, as we have seen, strongly confirmed by the 
appearances of the enamel rods. Following the course of an enamel 
rod, w r e often find that for some distance the matrix is entirely com- 
posed of parallel threads, and that this form of structure suddenly 
changes into one made up of sections of an alveolar or spongiose 
character. 
The paper which I read before the Royal Society was subsequently 
extended for publication in an American journal ; and in this extended 
form I suggested that the bodies somewhat resembling the nucleus in 
structure, which are frequently to be observed throughout the entire 
length of the ameloblasts, had their origin in the nucleus. I fear this 
suggestion was generally regarded as an unwarrantable speculation. 
Since that time Prof. Wilson’s book on the cell has appeared, and 
from that I quote the following passage bearing upon this point. 
He is speaking of the evidence that a part of the egg cytoplasm in 
the eggs of Amphibia, Echinoderms, and some worms, is directly or 
indirectly derived from the nucleus, and he says: “A large number 
of observers have maintained that a similar giving off of solid nuclear 
substance occurs during the earlier stages of growth ; and these ob- 
servations are so numerous and some of them are so careful, that it is 
impossible to doubt that this process really takes place. The portions 
thus cast out of the nucleus have been described by some authors as 
actual buds from the nucleus.” The mass of the evidence, Prof. Wilson 
says, goes to show that these eliminated nuclear materials are to be 
regarded as food-matter or formative substances. This was precisely 
my suggestion with reference to the spongiose globular bodies which 
appear in the cytoplasm of the ameloblast ; and it was made more 
than a year before the publication of Prof. Wilson’s volume, nor did 
I know until I read this book that similar suggestions had been made 
by other investigators. 
