88 VIGNETTES FEOM INVISIBLE LIFE. 



creatures the distinctive name they now bear i.e., 

 Rotifers. 



Having amused and instructed your friends with 

 this wonderful sight, you allow the water once 

 more to evaporate and place the dry dust away for 

 further use. Or you may now proceed to yet 

 severer tests; for both the little Water-bears and 

 the Rotifers, after being dried up in the way here 

 described, will bear intense heat before giving up 

 the ghost. True they will not stand boiling water, 

 yet they will stand dry heat up to 260 Fah., 

 and hot water at 118 Fah. They have also been 

 kept in a vacuum for thirty days, with sulphuric 

 acid and chloride of calcium, without losing their 

 capability of revivification. 



Various theories have from time to time been 

 propounded to account for these extraordinary 

 phenomena, and much scientific and even theo- 

 logical wrangling has been brought to bear upon 

 them. The Clericals on the Continent fancied that 

 here, in actual organisms under our eyes, was found 

 something like a demonstration of the doctrine of 

 the " Resurrection from the Dead." This idea 

 was strongly contested by their opponents ; and 



