< Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu
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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

Bathybius. In Nature (August 19, 1875), and in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopic Science (1875, vol. xv., p. 392), he writes as follows:

"Prof. Wyville Thomson informs me that the best efforts of the Challenger's staff have failed to discover Bathybius in a fresh state, and that it is seriously suspected that the thing to which I gave that name is little more than sulphate of lime, precipitated in a flocculent state from sea-water by the strong alcohol in which the specimens of the deep-sea soundings which I examined were preserved. The strange thing is, that this inorganic precipitate is scarcely to be distinguished from precipitated albumen, and it resembles, perhaps, even more closely, the proligerous pellicle on the surface of a putrescent infusion (except in the absence of all moving particles), coloring irregularly, but very fully, with carmine, running into patches with defined edges, and in every way comporting itself like an organic thing. Prof. Thomson speaks very guardedly, and does not consider the fate of Bathybius to be as yet absolutely decided. But since I am mainly responsible for the mistake, if it be one, of introducing this singular substance into the list of living things, I think I shall err on the right side in attaching even greater weight than he does to the view which he suggests."

These words of Prof. Huxley's awakened marked interest, and were pretty generally thought to be the death-blow of poor Bathybius. But, in proportion as the real parents of Bathybius show a disposition to abandon their child as being beyond hope, the more do I consider it to be my duty as its godfather to defend its rights and, if possible, to restore its expiring vital spark. Here, as luck would have it, I find a variable ally in the person of a traveled German naturalist, who quite recently observed living Bathybius off the coast of Greenland. The well-known north-polar explorer, Dr. Emil Bessels, who fortunately returned safe after the wreck of the Polaris, writes as follows of the Haeckelina gigantea, a giant Rhizopod, probably identical with Astrorhiza, previously described by Sandahl:

"During the late American North-Polar Expedition, I found in Smith Sound, at the depth of ninety-two fathoms, great masses of free, undifferentiated, homogeneous protoplasm, without any trace of coccoliths. In view of its truly Spartan simplicity, I gave to this organism (which I was able to study in the living state) the name of Protobathybius. In the report of the expedition it will be figured and described. I would simply say in this place that these masses consisted of pure protoplasm, in which calcareous particles occurred only by accident. They appeared to be very sticky, mesh-like structures, with perfect amœboid movements; they took up particles of carmine, and other foreign substances, and there was active motion of the nuclei."—(Jenaische Zeitschrift für Naturwissenschaft, vol. ix., p. 277. See also Annual Report of the Secretary of the Navy for 1873).

In Packard's "Life-Histories of Animals" is to be seen a figure (published by Bessels) of the protoplasm-net of Protobathybius. From this figure I conclude that Protobathybius is the same as our Bathyhius.

III. A Critique of Bathybius.—Having now presented to the reader the historic facts relating to Bathybius, we next address ourselves to

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