THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 43 



The following experiment was made at Paris. A zoolo- 

 gist placed on the bulb of a thermometer some earth con- 

 taining a certain number of little microscopic animals called 

 tardigrades, on account of the extreme slowness and awk- 

 wardness of their gait. The instrument was then thrust 

 into a stove, and when the mercury rose from 293 to 306 

 Fahr. the thermometer was withdrawn. Afterwards, by 

 using proper measures, the animalcules which were found 

 on the bulb were brought back to life. 



All present concluded from this experiment that the tar- 

 digrades were almost incombustible, and that they miracu- 

 lously resisted a temperature as high as 306 Fahr. 1 



The miracle of these modern children of the furnace has 

 lessened in proportion as it has been more studied, just as 

 the stature of the Patagonians has diminished since men 

 have seen more of them. 



The tardigrades had, it is true, been plunged into a stove 

 heated from 293 to 306 Fahr. But if they issued from it 

 alive, it was because their bodies had never in reality been 

 subjected to this burning heat, which would have been 

 enough to coagulate their fluids and dry up all the sources of 

 life. The thermometer, being extremely sensitive, quickly 

 took on the temperature of the medium into which it had 

 been plunged, but the earth which lay upon it, being a bad 

 conductor of heat, never reached this temperature by a 



1 The experiments of which we are speaking here were made in 1841, in the 

 presence of Messrs de Jussieu, Dumas, Milne-Edwards, and Quatrefages. 



It has been clearly shown in the present day that they were entirely erro- 

 neous, for the Biological Society, in their celebrated experiments, never saw a 

 single tardigrade resuscitated after being subjected to a temperature of only 

 212 Fahr. 



