Aggregation of the Protoplasm from the Action of Carbonate of
Ammonia. I have fully described in the third chapter the remarkable
effects of moderately strong doses of this salt in causing the
aggregation of the protoplasm within the cells of the glands and
tentacles; and here my object is merely to show what small doses
suffice. A leaf was immersed in twenty minims (1.183 ml.) of a solution
of one part to 1750 of water, [page 146] and another leaf in the same
quantity of a solution of one part to 3062; in the former case
aggregation occurred in 4 m., in the latter in 11 m. A leaf was then
immersed in twenty minims of a solution of one part to 4375 of water,
so that it received 1/240 of a grain (.27 mg.); in 5 m. there was a
slight change of colour in the glands, and in 15 m. small spheres of
protoplasm were formed in the cells beneath the glands of all the
tentacles. In these cases there could not be a shadow of a doubt about
the action of the solution.
A solution was then made of one part to 5250 of water, and I
experimented on fourteen leaves, but will give only a few of the cases.
Eight young leaves were selected and examined with care, and they
showed no trace of aggregation. Four of these were placed in a drachm
(3.549 ml.) of distilled water; and four in a similar vessel, with a
drachm of the solution. After a time the leaves were examined under a
high power, being taken alternately from the solution and the water.
The first leaf was taken out of the solution after an immersion of 2
hrs. 40 m., and the last leaf out of the water after 3 hrs. 50 m.; the
examination lasting for 1 hr. 40 m. In the four leaves out of the water
there was no trace of aggregation except in one specimen, in which a
very few, extremely minute spheres of protoplasm were present beneath
some of the round glands. All the glands were translucent and red. The
four leaves which had been immersed in the solution, besides being
inflected, presented a widely different appearance; for the contents of
the cells of every single tentacle on all four leaves were
conspicuously aggregated; the spheres and elongated masses of
protoplasm in many cases extending halfway down the tentacles. All the
glands, both those of the central and exterior tentacles, were opaque
and blackened; and this shows that all had absorbed some of the
carbonate. These four leaves were of very nearly the same size, and the
glands were counted on one and found to be 167. This being the case,
and the four leaves having been immersed in a drachm of the solution,
each gland could have received on an average only 1/64128 of a grain
127