G. GENERAL NATURAL HISTORY AND ZOOLOGY. 299 



LAKE DWELLINGS NEAR LEIPSIC. 



According to Dr. Fritsch, the discovery Las Lately been 

 made of lacustrine dwellings in the vicinity of Leipsic, as the 

 result of certain engineering operations undertaken to regu- 

 late the course of the River Elster. After passing through a 

 r.eries of layers at a certain depth, the workmen found a series 

 of oak piles, pointed below and decomposed above, and sup- 

 porting a certain number of oak trunks placed horizontally; 

 and on the same level with these were found certain lower 

 jaws and teeth of oxen, fragments of antlers, broken bones of 

 various mammifers, shells of an anodon, fragments of pottery, 

 two polished stone hatchets, etc. 3 B^ June 19, 1873, 291. 



IIUIZINGA ON ABIOGENESLS. 



Professor Huizinga, of the University of Groningen, has 

 lately published in Nature an account of some recent experi- 

 ments on abiogenesis, and finds occasion to agree with Dr. 

 Bastian and others that bactei'ia do become developed in 

 certain hermetically sealed solutions in spite of the utmost 

 care being taken to prevent them or their germs from pene- 

 trating therein. The precautions consist in exposing the so- 

 lution during the process of sealing to a temperature consid- 

 erably exceeding that of boiling water. The solution used by 

 him is essentially that recommended by Cohn and others, 

 and is prepared with certain mineral salts, as of potash, mag- 

 nesia, calcium, and a quantity of grape-sugar and peptone. 

 There was not the slightest evidence of other organisms than 

 bacteria not even fungi of any form. It is, however, yet to 

 be ascertained whether the germs of the bacteria were in re- 

 ality not introduced in the solution, and whether a much 

 greater degree of heat is not required for the destruction of 

 their vitality than that employed in these experiments. 12 

 A.March 20, 1873, 380. 



BLOOD CORPUSCLES OF THE SALMONID^. 



Mr. George Gulliver announces, as the result of recent in- 

 vestigation, that the red blood corpuscles of the Salmomdm 

 are the largest, as far as his observation extends, to be found 

 in any of the osseous fishes ; and in this respect the American 

 brook trout {Salmo fontinalis) stands at the head, its blood 



