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in making its sexual propagation, the first commencement of the embryo, the starting-point of the investigation. It was natural to expect as happy results from the embryology of the Algae, as had been obtained in the case of the higher plants; it was important therefore, that the observer should no longer rest satisfied with a knowledge of the sexual multiplication of the Algae; he must enquire into their asexual propagation, and by its aid discover the complete history of their development. Former observations suggested the probability that here too sexual propagation is the prevailing rule; but it was easy to foresee that it would be a task of great labour to make out a connected history of development, a task of which the collectors who liked to call themselves systematists had never formed a conception; but Nägeli's and Hofmeister's researches had made botanists familiar with the highest demands of this kind, and the men who were to gain new conquests for genuine science were already engaged in the work in 1850. A splendid result appeared in 1853, in Thuret's account of the fertilisation of the genus Fucus; this was a simple process as a matter of embryology; but the sexual act was so clear, and even open to experimental treatment, that it threw light at once upon other cases more difficult to observe. Then followed discoveries of sexual processes in rapid succession; Pringsheim solved the old enigma in Vaucheria in 1855, and between 1856 and 1858 in the Oedogonieae, Saprolegnieae and Coleochaetae; in 1855 Cohn observed the sexual formation of spores in Sphaeroplea. Pringsheim however was not content with carefully observing the sexual act; he gave detailed descriptions of growth in the same families in its progress cell by cell, of the formation of the sexual organs, and the development of the sexual product. The asexual propagations which are intercalated into the vegetation and embryology were shown in their true connection. Processes were recognised which often recalled the alternation of generations in the Mus-