This for a while baffled and disturbed
us. It lured us off the scent. We inferred that it might possibly be a
fertilizing fluid, and that we must look in other directions for the
issue. But this was fruitless, and we were driven again to the old point,
and having once more obtained the emitted fluid, determined to fix a lens
magnifying 5,000 diameters upon a clear space over which the fluid had
rolled, and near to the exhausted sac, and ply our old trade of _watching_
with unbroken observation.
The result was a reward indeed. At first the space was clear and white,
but in the course of a hundred minutes there came suddenly into view the
minutest conceivable specks. I can only compare the coming of these to the
growth of the stars in a starless space upon the eye of an intense watcher
in a summer twilight. You knew but a few minutes since a star was not
visible there, and now there is no mistaking its pale beauty. It was so
with these inexpressibly minute sporules; they were not there a short time
since, but they grew large enough for our optical aids to reveal them, and
there they were. Such a field after one hour's watching I present to you.
And here I would remark that these delicate specks were unlike any which
we saw emerge directly from the sac as granules. In that condition they
were always semi-opaque, but here they were transparent, and a brown
yellow, the condition always sequent upon a certain measure of growth.
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