THE BEGINNINGS OF LIFE. 385 



of iooF, the same rule must necessarily hold good 

 for ether. 



Much evidence, indeed, can be brought forward to 

 show that even at ordinary temperatures, and under 

 conditions in which there is a moderately free exposure 

 to the air (and where there is therefore every facility 

 for the entrance of germs), organisms are not only 

 found in a neutral or slightly alkaline solution more 

 quickly, but they are found to exist in it in much 

 greater variety than in solutions which are slightly acid, 

 but in other respects similar. Any of the higher forms 

 of Ciliated Infusoria may appear in different neutral or 

 slightly alkaline solutions, though they rarely if ever 

 present themselves in those having an acid reaction, 

 either in a developed or undeveloped condition dead 

 or living. 



The amount of difference that is capable of being 

 produced by the mere acidity of a solution was well 

 seen by me a few months ago. Having prepared l a 

 mixture of white sugar and ammonic tartrate, with 

 small quantities of ammonic phosphate and sodic phos- 

 phate in distilled water, whose reaction was found to 

 be neutral, two similar, wide-mouthed bottles, of about 

 three ounces capacity, were filled with this fluid. Both 

 were kept side by side in a tolerably warm place, the 

 mouths of the bottles being merely covered in each case 

 by a piece of glass after glycerine had been smeared 

 over the rim on which the cover rested. Although not 



1 Dec. 23, 1869. The weather being very cold and frosty. 

 VOL. I. C C 



