3 86 
Paine. — On the Supposed Origin of 
bodies seemed to remain entirely unaltered. They were then mounted 
in a resinous medium (euparal) and examined closely with a high power 
objective. They appeared as thick-walled hollow spheres apparently of 
silica, the walls bearing pits very similar to those in the walls of the so-called 
stone cells of the pear. The pitting is well shown in the original photo- 
graph, but this detail will probably disappear in the process of reproduction. 
In Fig. 6 three of these objects are seen in juxtaposition, and beneath these 
several fragments of others which have been broken by pressure on the 
cover-glass during mounting. The objects were very brittle and, as stated 
above, were hollow ; to this fact is due the apparent blackness of one of the 
spheres from which the air was not expelled by the mounting fluid. 
Comparison of these preparations with Dr. Bastian’s Figs. 5 and 35 in 
‘ The Origin of Life ’ points to the conclusion that the bodies under investi- 
gation are identical with those figured by him. The granular contents 
of which he speaks in the description of Fig. 5 appear to the author to 
be only pits in the walls such as he has observed in his own preparations. 
The method of formation of these bodies is so far obscure. 
In contrast, the method of formation of the other silico-morphs 
mentioned above, namely the small solid spheres and the flat discs, is 
not difficult of explanation. These bodies have probably been built up by 
slow deposition from a colloidal solution upon minute specks of solids, 
or upon nuclei composed of the first aggregates which have separated from 
such solution. That silica is deposited slowly from colloidal solutions upon 
solids immersed in them is well shown in PI. IX, Fig. 7. This specimen 
was found in a bottle of colloidal silica which had been left undisturbed for 
twenty-one months. The nucleus for deposition in this case seems to have 
been a cotton fibre which in course of time has become irregularly coated 
with a hard glass-like mass of silica. Fine markings visible in the original 
photograph, which appear as striae in the deposit, will probably be lost 
in reproduction. 
Besides the forms already mentioned, there occurred in most of the 
tubes very fine threads with something of the appearance of fungal hyphae. 
These have been well figured in a recent publication by Professor Moore 
and W. G. Evans (Proc. Roy. Soc., 1915, B., 89, p. 17), who have shown that 
they result by slow decomposition from metastable solutions of inorganic 
colloids. That they are not threads of fungal mycelium is very apparent 
when, while under observation with a low power objective, an attempt is 
made to draw them across the slide with a fine pointed needle. Thus 
in several experiments of this kind it was observed that the thread is not 
carried along or bent by the needle, as would be the case with a fungal 
hypha, but is ruptured by the needle at the point of contact, the sub- 
stance of the thread being drawn out in a streak of gelatinous material. 
Moreover, when attempts were made to stain these threads it was 
