By Prof Paulus F. Reinsch.

Author Algae of France, 1866; Latest Observations on Algology, 1867; Chemical Investigation of the Connections of the Lias and Jura Formations, 1859; Chemical Investigation of the Viscum Album, 1860; Contributions to Algology and Fungology, 1874-75, vol. i.; New Investigation of the Microscopic Structure of Pit Coal, 1881; Micrographic Photographs of the Structure and Composition of Pit Coal, 1888.

Dr. Cutter writes me September 28, 1882: "My dear Professor: By this mail I send you a specimen of the Gemiasma rubra of Salisbury, described in 1862, as found in bogs, mud holes, and marshes of ague districts, in the air suspended at night, in the sputa, blood, and urine, and on the skin of persons suffering with ague. It is regarded as one of the Palmellaceae. This rubra is found in the more malignant and fatal types of the disease. I have found it in all the habitats described by Dr. Salisbury. Both he and myself would like you to examine and hear what you have to say about it."

The substance of clayish soil contains, besides fragments of shells of larger diatoms (Suriella synhedra), shells of Navicula minutissima, Pinnularia viridis. Spores belonging to various cryptogams.

1. Spherical transparent spores with laminated covering and dark nucleus--0.022 millimeter in diameter.

2. Spherical spores with thick covering of granulated surface.

3. Spherical spores with punctulated surface--0.007 millimeter in diameter.

4. Very minute, transparent, bluish-greenish colored spores, with thin covering and finely granulated contents--0.006 millimeter in diameter.

5. Chroococcoid cells with two larger nuclei--0.0031 millimeter in diameter. Sometimes biciliated minute cells are found; without any doubt they are zoospores derived from any algoid or fungoid species.

I cannot say whether there exists any genetic connection between these various sorts of spores. It seems to me that probably numbers 1-4 represent resting states of the hyphomycetes.

No. 5 represents one and two celled states of chroococcus species belong to Chroococcus minutus.

The crust of the clayish earth is covered with a reddish brown covering of about half a millimeter in thickness. This covering proves to be composed, under the microscope, of cellular filaments and various shaped bodies of various composition. They are made up of cells with densely and coarsely granulated reddish colored contents--shape, size, and composition are very variable, as shown in the figures. The cellular bodies make up the essential organic part of the clayish substance, and, without any doubt, if anything of the organic compounds of the substance is in genetical connection with the disease, these bodies would have this role. The structure and coloration of cell contents exhibit the closest alliance to the characteristics of the division of Chroolepideae and of this small division of Chlorophyllaceous Algae, nearest to Gongrosira--a genus whose five to six species are inhabitants of fresh water, mostly attached to various minute aquatic Algae and mosses. Each cell of all the plants of this genus produces a large number of mobile cells--zoospores.

Fig. 9 represents very probably one zoospore developed from these plants as figured from 10 to 16.