024 Muscle in the Eyes of Fishes. 



teucci), are pervaded by electrical or galvanic currents ; that 

 there is a telluric as well as an animal life, which prevents 

 the fluids in the earth, as animal life does the animal or- 

 ganization, from obeying the same chemical laws as when 

 taken out of their natural vessels : and lastly, that the prima- 

 ry animal organizations, which are the seat of galvanic cur- 

 rents, give rise to secondary or parasitic growths and animals ; 

 whereas many observations tend to prove that the earth is 

 still productive of plants, without their seeds pre-existing in 

 it, and the more I consider these premises, the more am 

 I led to the conclusion, not only that every organic body owes 

 its existence in the first instance to what is called spontane- 

 ous generation, but also that magnetism, galvanism, and elec- 

 tricity are the forces which, with the co-operation of other 

 imponderables, make organic matter combine into organic 

 arrangements. 



Weimar, October 4th, 1838. 



Art. X. — Letter from John Dalrymple, Esq., in Reply to Mr. 

 Wallace's Remarks at page 553. 



My Dear Sir, 



I perceive in the last Number of your 'Magazine of 

 Natural History,' a paper entitled a reply to Mr. Dalrymple, 

 " on an undescribed Muscle in the Eyes of Fishes." Allow 

 me space for a few observations, in order that I may put my- 

 self right with regard to the somewhat angry remarks of Mr. 

 Clay Wallace, of New York, the author of this reply. 



I wish that gentleman had rightly copied the title of my 

 paper, — (" Some account of a Peculiar Structure in the Eyes 

 of Fishes''), since I appear, by this error of Mr. Wallace, to 

 be involved in the absurdity of calling that an " undescribed 

 muscle," three descriptions of which by others, 1 quote in my 

 paper. 



The gravamen of Mr. Wallace's charge against me, is, that 

 having shown the preparations of this structure, made by me 

 many years ago, to some gentlemen from, or going to, Ame- 

 rica, then studying at the Ophthalmic Hospital in Moorfields, 

 I had suspected, in consequence of a paper sent to me from 

 New York about two years since, that Mr. Clay Wallace, the 

 author, was one of those gentlemen to whom the exhibition 

 was made. Mr. Wallace says he is not an American, and 

 consequently the American gentlemen are exempt from this 



