Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882
Various
Science -- Periodicals
It now remains to inquire what is their mode of life, and what their
function.
I next exposed a quantity of Radiolarians (chiefly _Collozoum_) to
sunshine, and was delighted to find them soon studded with tiny
gas-bubbles. Though it was not possible to obtain enough for a
quantitative analysis, I was able to satisfy myself that the gas was not
absorbed by caustic potash, but was partly taken up by pyrogallic acid,
that is to say, that little or no carbonic acid was present, but that a
fair amount of oxygen was present, diluted of course by nitrogen.
The exposure of a shoal of the beautiful blue pelagic Siphonophore,
_Velella_, for a few hours, enabled me to collect a large quantity of
gas, which yielded from 24 to 25 per cent. of oxygen, that subsequently
squeezed out from the interior of the chambered cartilaginous float,
giving only 5 per cent. But the most startling result was obtained
by the exposure of the common _Anthea cereus_, which yielded great
quantities of gas containing on an average from 32 to 38 per cent. of
oxygen.
At first sight it might seem impossible to reconcile this copious
evolution of oxygen with the completely negative results obtained from
the same animal by so careful an experimenter as Krukenberg, yet the
difficulty is more apparent than real. After considerable difficulty I
was able to obtain a large and beautiful specimen of _Anthea cereus_,
var. _smaragdina_, which is a far more beautiful green than that with
which I had been before operating--the dingy brownish-olive variety,
_plumosa_. The former owes its color to a green pigment diffused chiefly
through the ectoderm, but has comparatively few algæ in its endoderm;
while in the latter the pigment is present in much smaller quantity;
but the endoderm cells are crowded by algæ. An ordinary specimen of
_plumosa_ was also taken, and the two were placed in similar vessels
side by side, and exposed to full sunshine; by afternoon the specimen of
_plumosa_ had yielded gas enough for an analysis, while the larger and
finer _smaragdina_ had scarcely produced a bubble. Two varieties of
_Ceriactis aurantiaca_, one with, the other without, yellow cells, were
next exposed, with a precisely similar result. The complete dependence
of the evolution of oxygen upon the presence of algæ, and its complete
independence of the pigment proper to the animal, were still further
demonstrated by exposing as many as possible of those anemones known
to contain yellow cells (_Aiptasia chamæleon, Helianthus troglodytes_,
etc.) side by side with a large number of forms from which these are
absent (_Actinia mesembryanthemum, Sagastia parasitica, Cerianthus_,
etc.). The former never failed to yield abundant gas rich in oxygen,
while in the latter series not a single bubble ever appeared.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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