The Effect of Centrifugal Force 
upon the Cell. 
BY 
DAVID M. MOTTIER, 
Professor of Botany in Indiana University, Bloomington , Ind., U. S. A. 
With Plate XVIII. 
T HE subject discussed in the following pages is one which 
has received little or no attention at the hands of either 
the botanist or zoologist. So far as is known to the writer 
there exists, as yet, no published account of any extended 
study dealing primarily with the effect of centrifugal force 
upon the living contents of the cell. It is true that centrifugal 
force has been extensively used by investigators in studies on 
geotropism, but in almost every case the reaction of the plant 
as a whole, or of its organs, was the primary object of research. 
This has also been largely the point of view of the experi- 
mental morphologist in dealing with animals. 
Dehnecke (’ 80 ) has observed that, in cells of the starch- 
sheath of fmpatiens , the large starch-grains, or clusters of 
them, would fall to the lower end of the cell by virtue of 
their own weight. This fact may be very readily verified by 
observing, with the microscope, cells of the starch-sheath of 
the plant in question held in a vertical position. 
[Annals of Botany, Vol. XIII. No. LI. September, 1899.] 
Z 
