clastic materials (clayish slates and sandstones). There are found three constant types of these bodies:

a. Flat or subcylindrical bodies
of filamentous and ramified
structure.

b. Flat or subcylindrical bodies,
forming simply filaments.
c. Flat, rounded, and various
shaped bodies of granulated

structure.

Between these three types are found forms containing filaments, connected with granulated bodies, others with bodies of fibrous and granulated structure. The latter bodies are commonly found with regular limited circumference and equal extension in the three dimensions, other bodies with irregular limited circumference and prepondarant longitudinal extension. The bodies of some of these types exhibit, from their constancy, the qualities of organic individuals.

Dispersed through all coal beds of the carbon, in free and isolated state, specimens are found of these curious bodies, the size of which does not vary much for the single forms. The largest form is found from 2 to 3 millimetres in length, the minutest 0.20 millimetre diameter. All these bodies belonging to this group of constituents of coal exhibit considerable regularity in their histological elements. These elements, granules and fibres, generally of the same size and shape, appear constantly composed of the same non-polarizing substance. Globular bodies of

more

homogeneous nature, and generally of the same diameter, are constantly found as accessory constituents to the body of the substance.

These bodies are not unfrequently found separated from the body from which they arose; doubtless they must have been in some genetical connection, as the same bodies are observed still connected with it, and some of the globules evidently not in a developed state.

A great many of these bodies ex

hibit remarkable transmutations, effected in the structure, as results of immediate contact with the yellowish semi-transparent substance of the nodules, enclosed in the principal constituent of the coal. The regular radial position of the molecules of the spheres of this substance becomes altered: some particles of the body, being in contact with, and partly histological elements of, the latter become separated from the whole body; and particles mixed up with and enveloped in the polarizing yellowish substance are found inside the transmuted spheres. Bodies of filamentous and fibrous structure in contact with the spheres are turned off from their regular position; the zone of contact of the substance is dispersed into filaments and fibres, still distinguishable from the polarizing substance; bodies of granular structure are resolved into cellular granules of the same size and shape, the latter sometimes separated from the whole body, and enveloped in the polarizing substance.

Within the layers of the various substances of the carbon coal bed are found layers of clastic mineral substance from microscopic size up to several centimetres in height. These clastic microbeds constantly contain fragments derived from the substances of those microbeds being in immediate contact. In many cases complete and connected groups are still seen in immediate connection with the substance from which they arose, and enclosed within the clastic substance. In many cases the histological structure and the general feature of the substance, in this isolated state, can be seen very much more clearly than is possible in an accumulated state in the pure microbed of the substance.

Some of these microbeds of clastic substance contain very well-preserved fragments of cellular and vascular plants. Some varieties of spores of vascular cryptogams of uniform size and shape are found mixed up with

fragments of well-preserved cellular tissue, and with substances belonging to neighbouring layers of the coal

bed.

The general results of these new examinations of the microscopical structure of carbon coal are as follow:

1. The coal of carbon is composed of substances different in histological structure and chemical constitution.

2. The single constituents of coal exhibit absolutely identical histological and morphological qualities.

3. The constituents are found either in an unmixed state, forming small beds (microbeds), or mixed up together.

4. The histological elements, in the case of immediate contact, still remain unaltered, and, in the zone of contact, still distinguishable.

5. In these cases peculiar transmutations are observed in the structure of two different substances, being in immediate contact (phenomena of contact), transmutations extending to histological structure and to morphological qualities.

6. The position and direction of all corpuscles of longitudinal and flat extension inclosed in the coal bed, is invariably the same, viz., the principal direction of the coal bed.

7. The histological structure of the constituents of coal exhibits a great variety, bnt is found to be of most constant character for one and the same form.

8. The juxtaposition of the histological elements is as follows:a. Longitudinally ramified. b. Reticularly ramified. c. Symmetrically ramified. d. Undivided. e. Radial-spherical. f. Cylindrical. g. Spherical.

Purely reticular disposition is found with one homogeneous and opaque substance (grammitoid).

9.

The size and color exhibit in all substances great uniformity.

and composition of the various coal beds is found to increase largely in microscopical detail.

11. If we are unable to allow the character of organic beings (not individuals) to a great many of these bodies, composed of organic substance, the latter cannot be derived simply as fragmentary particles from other vegetable beings, nor from the products of the process of decomposition of vegetable substances.

12. No distinct rule is observed in the succession of the various substances in the coal beds, but great varieties of the qualities of the microbeds, and we cannot observe any proportional relation in the distribution of the various substances within the coal bed.

EDITORIAL.

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subscription-list of the JOURNAL has increased so much during the present year that we feel justified in announcing an increase of price for complete sets of volume III. All future subscriptions at $1.00 for 1882 must begin with the April number, or later. price of a complete set is now fixed at $2.00 net. We hoped to wait until the completion of the volume before making this announcement, but our stock of back numbers is getting so small that we fear it will be entirely exhausted by the end of the year..

THE PROBLEM OF LIFE.-No one can foresee the ultimate result of the simplest observation in science. As the train of thought aroused by the fall of an apple led to the conception of

a universal force of gravity, so, from the slightest hint, the biologist may yet be able to formulate a theory of life. For this reason, the article on page 191 on life and death in the animal world, although it is purely philosophical and speculative, at the present time possesses an interest for even the most realistic student. It may be said, and truly, that such articles only tend to reveal to us the limitations of our knowledge of this problem. At the most they are but ingenious hypotheses, or futile attempts, to explain what still remains as much a mystery as ever. Yet how often it has happened in the experience of the past, that the most brilliant and far-reaching discoveries have suddely sprung forth out of an ignorance as dense as this!

When we think of the advance in knowledge since the days of science in its infancy, or even since the begining of the present century, is any one so bold as to attempt to define the bounds of finite knowledge? Dare we declare that even the mystery of life is beyond and above human comprehension ?

If not, then there is a legitimate field for speculation opened by such contributions as those of Bütschli and Cholodkowsky, which the student should not despise.

Already chemists have studied this subject, and many of the complex compounds produced in the animal body have been synthetically formed in the laboratory. Such investigations indeed, do not throw light upon the processes of cell-nutrition and metastasis, but, by revealing the molecular structure of the compounds, and indicating the different possible ways in which the particular groupings of its constituent atoms can be brought about, they have opened a path toward a more intimate knowledge of the processes within the cells.

After many years, the old idea of a specific vital force antagonistic to the ordinary chemistry has been

eliminated from science. We now study the chemistry of living things unhampered by false ideas of life. We no longer believe in a special chemistry of life, but rather we regard life as sustained by, if not a direct result of, chemic forces-by which we mean the interaction of ultimate atoms.

Nevertheless, the artificial synthesis of organic compounds by no means justifies the assumption that the processes of life can be produced, or even imitated, in the laboratory. They only lead, as we have said, to a knowledge of the processes in the chemical laboratories of animals and plants

which are the cells. But that we shall ever succeed in balancing the opposing atomic forces of the universe so that, by their continuous and mutual intraction, chemical changes will go on indefinately as in the living cell, is not to be even dreamed of.

ARTIFICIAL CELLS.-In connection with the preceding article we should not omit a reference to experiments which have attracted notice from time to time, in regard to the artificial production of cells, not, indeed of living cells, but of cells so nearly like those which live as to be indistinguishable from them in appearance and visible structure. They are produced by the slow chemical action of two salts which, when they react together, form an insoluble compound. It is said that the artificial cells thus produced are enclosed by a true membrane, which allows of free passage to liquids, and their interior granulations are arranged in a regular order, as in living cells. So striking is the resemblance between them and living structures that it has even been suggested that they may have been produced accidentally in the history of the world, and their forms been preserved in the rocks, and are now described as fossil remains of past life.

What seems of most importance in regard to these inorganic forms is

THE VITALITY OF GERMS.-A note ont his subject by A. Certes, in the Bulletin de la Société Zoologique recounts an interesting experiment carried out by the author. In March, 1878, he received from Algeria some salt water containing algæ, infusoria, and some larvæ. This was allowed to evaporate in the sun and the sediment was carefully collected and kept three years until April, 1881 The sediment was then placed in boiled and filtered rain-water, and care was taken to exclude germs. Ciliated infusoria and flagellates soon appeared, and about the beginning of June there were found some larvæ, at first microscopic. They multiplied and increased in size and soon transformed into an animalcule of about one centimetre in length, which was recognized as Artemia salina.

The Sahel of Algeria is overlooked by a small mountain, the Boudzarea, on the summit of which remain the trenches of an old Turkish fort. In 1877 the drouth was excessive. After the first rains the author climbed the mountain and, in the same trench where he had found it eight months before, he found an abundance of Blepharisma lateritia, a ciliated infusorium. It had, either as an animalcule or as germs or cysts, withstood a torrid heat for several months.

THE INFUSORIA.-The sixth and last part of the "Manual of the Infusoria" by Mr. W. Saville Kent has been issued, and as the work is now

PROF. TUTTLE'S ADDRESS. Instead of giving a short abstract of this address, as we at first intended, we found it necessary to print nearly the whole of it, in order to do full justice to the views of its able author. Prof. Tuttle very modestly asks that any weakness in his arguments be attributed to himself, rather than to the cause. Taking one view of the subject, the view so well maintained by Prof. Tuttle, it must be admitted that the establishment of an independent section of microscopy seems to confer upon microscopy the dignity of a science which it scarcely deserves. Yet there are other considerations which, it seems to us, fully justify the formation of the section. Certain subjects will always come before the Association which could not be appropriately presented before any of the other sections. As an instance of this, the address of Dr. Carpenter, published last month. Many subjects pertaining to the microscope belong as well to the physical and biological sections; but as both of those sections have as much as they can do already, it is well to afford an opportunity for the presentation of such subjects before a special section.