282 MR. NEWPORT ON THE IMPREGNATION OF THE OVUM IN THE AMPHIBIA 
„atozoon has penetrated through the envelopes and arrived at the 
or the yelk r Or is it by its expenditure on the yelk, of a/orce or power of 
H inherit in the body of the spermatozoon ? Or is it by the joint cooperation of both 
these conditions-the expenditure oi. force with diffluence of 
have endeavoured to put the first of these questions to the test of experime 
although, it must he remarked, that Zf 
Zdi'sZit^n “dVtearreZne^ of all matter to enter into new combinations, and 
Ixpltaem iZralldtdoslt^ftLirtrentlp^Trf the egg at the instant of 
heTr cltct with any aqueous fluid, and the rapidity with which the yelk itsel then 
becon-B alcted, seemed to favour the idea that if the bodies of the newly obtained 
spermatozoa could be quickly reduced to a state of difiiueuce simply by “^ahamcal 
means, without the addition of any menstruum, saving only a very smal flaant t 
water and be applied in this state of diffluence to the egg at the instant aftei it has 
left the body of the female,— that then an experiment thus made would be a . 
ofthe quesLn. Some imbibition of the substance of the spema ozoon wi h the 
water Ight thus be expected to take place, and some changes in the egg to o , 
if impregnation be the result of simple chemical combination of the substance of 
male with that of the female. The presence in the experiment ^ P«‘-‘™;ZTit to 
holding the diffluent spermatic substance in suspension, appeared at fiist 
bf an Ob ection but this seemed to be met by the fact that water must always be pr - 
sent to ensure the natural fecundation ofthe Frog s egg •, and "“‘Zlloon 
ates the envelopes, and is the means of facilitating the entrance of the speunatozo , 
but that it passes even to the substance of the yelk itself, as shown in the expenii 
w h aZ qintities of potass before alluded to, and also in others -de by imme - 
Sion of !ggs in water with given proportions of potass in solution. As^‘he d^s oj 
these latter experiments are contained in a papei w iic i is experiments, 
the Roval Society*, I need give but little more than the results of these expeiment, 
in the present communication, before proceeding to relate those now referre o wi 
Xir&Zufious of Potass and Soda. -These experiments were 
commenced in April 1850, before the publication of some which were w ^ 
solutions of caustic potass, by M. Quathefaoes, on the , 
marine worms, Hemu:Ua, and read to the Institute on the 24th of June ISSOf. 
• MS., No. 762, p. 13 to 26 , also Proceedings, vol. vi. p. 83. 
t Comptes Rendus, June 24, 1850, md Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 3 -dn , 
marked “ February ” and “ March 1850, 
