But lately there have been made, in the realm of the organic, discoveries of beings which take the lowest conceivable round on the ladder of organisms, and which in their form and structure are so simple that from them to the inorganic there seems to be but a short step. We can no longer mention as belonging to the bridges which are said to lead from the organic world to the inorganic, the often-named _bathybius_, discovered by Huxley, and so strongly relied upon for the mechanical explanation of life--a slimy net-like growth, which covers the rocks in the great depths of the ocean. For after scientists like K. E. von Baer and others had already declared it probable that this bathybius is only a precipitate of organic relics, no less a person than the discoverer of the bathybius, in the "Annals of Natural History," 1875, {133} and in the "Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science," 1875, has suggested that the whole discovery is but gypsum, which was precipitated in a gelatinous condition. Likewise the utterances concerning the simplicity and lack of structure of the lowest organisms, are to be accepted only with great reservation; for most of these organisms show very differently and very distinctly stamped structures; of this fact, anyone may easily convince himself, who has had the opportunity of observing with the microscope low and lowest organisms, and to admire their striking and manifold forms. Nevertheless, there are monera whose structure seems to be nothing but a living clod without kernel and cover, and which in that respect represent the lowest conceivable form of organic being and life.