XII NOTES BY THE EDITOR. 



ing of the British Association, the whole question is now rele- 

 gated to the region of inquiries into the degree of heat that will 

 be certainly destructive to the lower forms of life." 



Dr. Bastian, in three articles ("Nature," vol. n., pp. 170, 193, 

 219), gives his reasons for believing that spontaneous generation 

 does occur. He criticises Professor Huxley's address before the 

 British Association in "Nature," vol. n., pp. 410, 431, and 492. 



In the hydrated chloride of aluminium we have a new antiseptic. 



At a meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, June 1st, 

 1870, Mr. Edward S. Morse made a verbal communication on the 

 position of the Brachiopoda in the animal kingdom. After stating 

 observations made upon different species, especially upon the 

 Lingula pyramidata, and upon alcoholic specimens of Tcrebratula 

 and Discina, he concludes that the Brachiopods, together with the 

 Polyzoa, should be removed from the Mollusca, and placed with 

 the Articulates among the Annelids. 



One cannot fail to notice that the workers in the different fields 

 of biology and physics are both engaged in investigating the first 

 conditions of matter, the one striving after a knowledge of the 

 germs of life ; the other investigating the size of atoms and their 

 existence or non-existence. Sir William Thomson, by his papers 

 on the size of atoms (published in "Nature," vol. I., p. 551), 

 has directed attention in a strong degree to Molecular Physics. 



Professor Young, of Dartmouth College, has succeeded in photo- 

 graphing a solar protuberance. A way is thus evidently opened 

 for preserving records of these eruptions. An important research 

 upon the constitution of the sun has been published by Professor 

 Zollner. His results are as follows : 



The forms of the protuberances are divided into two groups, 

 vaporous or cloudy, and eruptive. The vesicles of vapor in ter- 

 restrial clouds only form the means through which the differences 

 of masses of air become visible. The clouds of the protuberances 

 are made visible by the incandescence of glowing hydrogen. 

 Starting with the hypothesis that the eruptions are clue to the 

 difference of pressure of gases emanating from the interior and 

 the surface of the sun, and assuming that there is a separating 

 layer between the inner and outer strata of hydrogen, he 

 follows out the mechanical theory of heat and gases, consider- 

 ing the eruptive protuberances due to the flow of a gas from one 

 space into another, while the pressure in both is constant ; neither 

 communication nor absorption of heat being assumed. He finds 

 the absolute minimum temperature in the space from which 



