that all animated nature may be said to be based on this mode of origin; _the fundamental form of organic being is a globule_, _having a new globule forming within itself_, by which it is in time discharged, and which is again followed by another and another, in endless succession. It is of course obvious that, if these globules could be produced by any process from inorganic elements, we should be entitled to say that the fact of a transit from the inorganic into the organic had been witnessed in that instance; the possibility of the commencement of animated creation by the ordinary laws of nature might be considered as established. Now it was given out some years ago by a French physiologist, that _globules could be produced in albumen by electricity_. If, therefore, these globules be identical with the cells which are now held to be reproductive, it might be said that the production of albumen by artificial means is the only step in the process wanting. This has not yet been effected; but it is known to be only a chemical process, the mode of which may be any day discovered in the laboratory, and two compounds perfectly co-ordinate, urea and alantoin, have actually been produced. In such an investigation as the present, it is not unworthy of notice that the production of shell is a natural operation which can be precisely imitated artificially. Such an incrustation takes place on both the outside and inside of the wheel in a bleaching establishment, in which cotton cloth is rinsed free of the lime employed in its purification. From the _dressing_ employed by the weaver, the cloth obtains the animal matter, _gelatin_; this and the lime form the constituents of the incrustation, exactly as in natural shell. In the wheel employed at Catrine, in Ayrshire, where the phenomenon was first observed by the eye of science, it had required ten years to produce a coating the tenth of an inch in thickness. This incrustation has all the characters of shell, displaying a highly polished surface, beautifully iridescent, and, when broken, a foliated texture. The examination of it has even thrown some light on the character and mode of formation of natural shell. “The plates into which the substance is divisible have been formed in succession, and certain intervals of time have elapsed between their formation; in general, every two contiguous laminæ are separated by a thin iridescent film, varying from the three to the fifty millionth part of an inch in thickness, and producing all the various colours of thin plates which correspond to intermediate thicknesses: between some of the laminæ no such film exists, probably in consequence of the interval of time between their formation being too short; and between others the film has been formed of unequal thickness. There can be no doubt that these iridescent films are formed when the dash-wheel is at rest during the night, and that when no film exists between two