118 Transactions of the Society. 



more information through your various assistance than from any other 

 person." 



Of the extensive correspondence carried on between Linnaeus and 

 Ellis a portion only is preserved by Sir J. E. Smith in his Selection 

 of the Correspondence of Linnseus and other Naturalists ; sufficient, 

 however, to manifest the mutual benefits derived, and the general 

 gain to science. I cannot detain you any longer than to give an 

 illustration, I fear somewhat lengthy, of this correspondence. I 

 select passages from several letters referring to phenomena observed 

 in the germination of the spores of Fungi. 



The first mention of this subject is in a letter to Linnaeus, dated 

 December 5, 1766. Ellis writes, " Peter Collinson spent the even- 

 ing with me, and showed me a letter you wrote to him about funguses 

 being alive in the seeds and swimming about like fish. You mention 

 something of it to me in your last letter." This letter is missing, 

 unfortunately. He continues, " If you have examined the seeds of 

 them yourself, and found them to be little animals, I should believe 

 it. Pray what time of the year, and what kinds ? I suppose they 

 must be taken while growing and in a vigorous state. I intend to 

 try. I think my glass will discover them, if they have animal life in 

 them. The seeds of the Equisetum palustre appear to be alive by 

 their twisting motion, when viewed through the Microscope ; but that 

 is not animal life." 



Linnaeus replied in the following month, January 1, 1767 : — 

 " With regard to Fungi, you may pick up, in most barns or stacks 

 of corn, spikes of wheat or barley, full of black powder, which we 

 call ustilago, or smut. Shake out some of this powder and put it 

 into tepid water, about the warmth of a pond in summer, for three or 

 four days. This water, though pellucid, when examined in a concave 

 glass under your own Microscope, will be found to contain thousands 

 of little worms. These ought first to be observed to prevent ocular 

 deception. In mould, Mucor, you will find the same, but not so easily 

 as in the larger Fungi, If, in the course of from eight to fourteen 

 days, the water has been kept up to the same temperature, you may 

 observe how these minute worm-like bodies become fixed, one after 

 the other, and acquire roots. I have just printed a dissertation on 

 the Invisible World,* which shall be sent you by the first opportunity. 



* This dissertation was published in 1767, and is contained in the seventh volume 

 of the Amcenitates Academical. It is chiefly devoted to the discoveries of Baron 

 Munchausen, who held that the dust (spores) of the Fungi were the ova of animal- 

 cules. Linnseus at first adopted this opinion, as appears from the above correspond- 

 ence with Ellis. He states it somewhat hesitatingly in the Systema Naturx (p. 132G). 

 The experiments of Ellis induced him to suppress this view in his subsequent pub- 

 lications, though he does not appear to have repudiated it. Linnaeus closes the 

 dissertation with a discussion of the nature of the animalcules which appear in 

 small-pox, anthrax, and similar diseases. There is an interesting practical fact 

 recorded in the treatise as to Baron Munchausen's treatment of his seed wheat. He 

 washed it with a lye made of lime and salt water, and for twenty years his crops 

 were free from smut, while it was destructively prevalent in his neighbours' crops. 



