INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS FOR THE YEAR 1871. xxvii 



great deal of discussion, and excited much commendation as 

 well as animadversion. The tendency, however, appears more 

 and more decided on the part of naturalists to adopt this 

 doctrine, and there are now few naturalists of eminence who 

 have not given in their adhesion to the proposition that all 

 organisms are the more or less modified derivatives from ante- 

 cedent forms. One of the most notable works in this field 

 published in 1871 was "On the Genesis of Species," by Mr. 

 Mivart. While Mr. Mivart opposes " Darwinism" proper, or 

 Mr. Darwin's explanation of the modus operandi of evolution 

 by natural selection, or rather contends that the operation 

 of natural selection is much more limited than Mr. Darwin 

 believed, he accepts fully the doctrine of evolution per se. 

 While acknowledging, however, that man's body has been 

 developed from a simian form, he believes that his intellectual 

 and spiritual pre-eminence are due to direct creative inter- 

 vention. The tendency of the German naturalists, on the 

 other hand, is toward a more full acceptance of the views of 

 Mr. Darwin, some undertaking to carry them to conclusions 

 beyond what was contemplated by the author. 



Among the points of special interest may also be mentioned 

 the discovery, by Dr. Greef, of a gigantic fresh-water Rhizo- 

 pod of very low organization, allied in some respects to Ba- 

 thybius, and named Pelobius by its discoverer. An announce- 

 ment by Mr. Crace Calvert that the temperature of boiling 

 water does not kill many forms of microscopic organization, 

 and that it sometimes requires a heat of over 400 to accom- 

 plish this, has a very important bearing upon the question 

 of spontaneous generation and sanitary precaution. 



Other communications worthy of mention are those of Dr. 

 Gunther on Ceratodus, the remarkable amphibian-like fish of 

 New Zealand; of Dr. J. E. Gray on the skulls of the tortoises ; 

 ofW. K.Parker on the development of the skull of the frog 

 and the eel ; of Prof. Cope on the fishes of the Ambyacu, etc. 



In Botany and Horticulture we have to record the appear- 

 ance of the valuable report by Mr. Sereno Watson on the 

 plants of Western North America, collected and observed by 

 him during the expedition of Mr. Clarence King. Nothing 

 of the kind has appeared in the United States for many years 

 of equal value. The ravages of the Grape-vine Louse {Phyl- 

 loxera vastatn'x) still excite much alarm in Europe, as in the 



