388 Paine. — On Simulation of Life in Colloidal Silica. 
Summary. 
1. The experiments of Dr. Bastian have been repeated. 
2 . In all, eighty-five tubes of colloidal silica have been examined. 
3 . Forms, which in a slight degree resembled organisms, have been 
found amongst the amorphous deposit which collected in the tubes, and 
these have been shown to be composed of silica. 
4. These bodies are thought to be identical with some of the so-called 
fungus germs described by the late Dr. Bastian. 
5- It is concluded that the forms resembling organisms, described by 
Dr. Bastian as evidence of spontaneous generation of life, were in part 
purely inorganic simulacra formed by slow deposition of silica from colloidal 
solution, and in part depositions of silica upon dead fungal hyphae which 
had developed in the solutions before these were filled into the tubes and 
sterilized. 
References. 
1. The Nature and Origin of Living Matter, 1905. The Evolution of Life, 1907. The Origin of 
Life (Second Edition), 1913. 
2. Nature, Jan. 22, and Dec. 24, 1914; July 15, 1915. 
3. Le Medecin (Brussels), Oct. 31, 1913, and Jan. 15, 1914. 
4. Nature, vol. xciv, 1914, p. 466. 
5. Nature, Feb. 12, 1914. 
EXPLANATION OF FIGURES IN PLATE IX. 
Illustrating Mr. Paine’s paper on Colloidal Silica. 
Fig. 1. Deposit of small spheres of silica from a solution of sodium silicate. 
Fig. 2. Deposit from a tube of colloidal silica, ammonium phosphate and phosphoric acid. 
Fig. 3. Discs of silica separated from Fig. 2 by pressure between the cover-slip and the slide 
upon which the deposit was mounted in water. 
Fig. 4. The same more highly magnified. 
Fig. 5. Deposit of gelatinous silica containing hollow spheres of silica removed from the sides 
of one of Dr. Bastian’s tubes. 
Fig. 6. Three of the same objects separated from the amorphous matrix, heated on a slide and 
mounted in euparal. (The dark object contains a bubble of air.) Fragments of others appear in 
the lower half. 
Fig. 7. Cotton fibres upon which silica has been laid down by deposition from a solution of 
colloidal silica. 
Fig. 8. Dead fungal mycelium from a tube which had remained for a week before sterilization. 
F'ig. 9. Fungi and spheres of silica from a tube of colloidal silica, ammonium phosphate and 
phosphoric acid, which was not sterilized. 
