British Association . 
1879.] 
629 
protoplasm, and conversely wherever there is protoplasm there 
is life. 
Co-extensive with the whole of organic nature — every vital adl 
being referable to some mode or property of protoplasm — it be- 
comes to the biologist what “ ether” is to the physicist, only 
that instead of being a mere hypothetical conception, accepted 
as a reality merely from its adequacy in explaining phenomena, 
it is a reality, visible and tangible. 
The chemical nature of protoplasm is very complex, and not 
yet fully determined. It is, however, a combination of albu- 
minoid bodies, its main elements being oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, 
and nitrogen. In its typical state it is a tenacious glairy liquid, 
in consistence something like the white of unboiled egg. Under 
the microscope it displays movements. Waves traverse its 
surface, or it is seen to flow away in streams of the most varied 
characters, not only in accordance with gravity, but in directions 
utterly opposed to gravitation. All these movements take place 
without any obvious impulse from without which might send 
ripples over its surface or set streamlets flowing from its margin. 
These phenomena are such as we never meet with in a simply 
physical fluid; they are spontaneous movements due to its 
proper irritability, to its essential constitution as living matter. 
On still closer examination it is found, if not absolutely homo- 
geneous, still totally destitute of structure. It is a living liquid, 
which, though organless, manifests the essential phenomena of 
life. 
Such is protoplasm in its most generalised aspedl. The 
speaker then proceeded to give some examples of protoplasm as 
actually met with in Nature. He described the far-famed 
Bathybius, first dredged up in the North Atlantic by the natural- 
ists of the exploring ship Porcupine , from depths of 5000 to 25,000 
feet. This substance has been examined by Huxley and Haeckel, 
who pronounce it to be living protoplasm in its simplest and most 
primitive condition. On the other hand, the Challenger explorers 
met with no traces of this living matter, — for it can scarcely be 
called a living being,— and they conclude that it is merely a 
deposit of sulphate of lime, inorganic, and of course inanimate. 
Bessels, however, the naturalist of the Polaris, confirms the 
views of Huxley and Haeckel, and states that he dredged up 
from the Greenland Seas masses of protoplasm, living, but un- 
differentiated. Further research is here, therefore, required. 
As a further and indisputable form of protoplasm we have 
Protamceba primiliva, little living lumps which multiply by spon- 
taneous division. 
A little higher is the Amoeba of our pools and gutters, a being 
without definite shape, perpetually changing its form, throwing 
out and drawing in thick lobes and finger-like “ false feet,” in 
which its body seems to flow over the field of the microscope. 
It is no longer a mere homogeneous particle of protoplasm, like 
