SP OCTANE US GENERA TIOX. 



9 1 



this he subjected the flasks to a heat of from 212 Fahr. to over 400 

 Fahr. After being left a few days under favorable situations, and then 

 examined, they were found to contain the living creatures we have 

 described. The only remaining question is, Could these organisms or 

 their o-erms survive this degree of heat ? The alternative to which the 

 opponents of spontaneous generation seem to be driven, by these in- 

 vestigations, is thus pointedly stated by Mr. Alfred Russell Wallace, 

 in a late review of Dr. Bastian's book, in Nature. He says : " The only 

 way of escaping from the resnlts of such a series of experiments as 

 that here recorded is by asserting that, although the organisms which 

 are produced in the flasks are killed by a temperature much below that 





Fig. 5. 



c m 



c-.li' 





a r 





W-s^-.i^j^ 1 



TRANSFORMATION OF A MASS OP ChLOROCOCCTTS CORPUSCLES INTO THE SO-CAT.LED "WdJTER-EQG" OP 



Hydatina senta. ( x 250.) 



a, Ovoid mass of bright-green Chloroooccus Corpuscles, about ^ in Ion? diameter : b. Such a mass after 

 its transformation into a brown granular body, without distinct bounding wall (should have been 

 intermediate in tint between a and o) ; c, A similar body at a later stage, when a limiting envelop has 

 made its appearance, upon which villous outgrowths had been produced; d. Later stage, constituting 

 the so-called 'winter-egg" of Hydatina ; e, Ilydatina senta which is produced from such a body 

 almost adult. 



to which the flasks have been subjected, the germs from which they 

 have been produced are not so killed. We are asked, therefore, to 

 accept as facts three pure suppositions : first, that such excessively 

 minute and simple organisms as bacteria, whose only mode of multi- 

 plication is by fission or gemmation, have germs which possess differ- 

 ent physical properties from themselves ; secondly, that these germs, 

 as well as many others, are omnipresent in the atmosphere; and, 

 thirdly, that they are not injured by an exposure for four hours to 

 vapor heated to over 300 Fahr. ; and, finally, we are to accept all 



