On the Origin and Composiiioji of Basalt. 15S 



likewise to be found. Professor Bugengeiger of Freyburg has 

 long since discovered chrome by means of the blowpipe. 



Nothing was discovered after repeated experiments with mu- 

 riatic acid, nor with sulphuric acid. Lithia has not been dis- 

 covered. Strontian was by no means always found ; but it was 

 decidedly discovered in the basalt from Stetten. 



On the Cholera Animalcule: 



It is a very generally diffused opinion, although supported by 

 no positive facts, that those animated creatures belonging to the 

 lowest classes to which, on account of their minuteness, the 

 name of Microscopic Animalcules has been given, are formed by 

 the simple aggregation of the so-called organic molecules ; and 

 Dr Hermann has endeavoured to explain the contagious nature 

 of cholera upon this supposition. As similar views have been 

 more than once suggested, and it is to be feared that their plau- 

 sibility may gain for them a more extended credence ; the opi- 

 nion of a naturalist deeply versed in microscopic inquiries, and 

 who has personally observed the oriental plague, a disease not 

 dissimilar in some of its characters to cholera, merits considera- 

 tion. Professor Ehrenberg, in a late fugitive piece, has express- 

 ed himself in the following terms upon this subject. 



To the doctrine of the similarity of the contagion of plague 

 and of cholera, is connected with another which has lately found 

 its way into the public journals, and which is merely a revival of 

 the old and antiquated idea of small invisible insects which ge- 

 nerate this contagion by their irritation, poison, &c., and propa- 

 gate it by their increase and migrations. Similar stories are to 

 be found in the traditions of various people as well as those of 

 the poisonous look of some human faces, of the dragon, of 

 witches, magicians, the second sight, &c., formerly so seriously 

 believed, but now only thought ridiculous. Linne, the great 

 reformer of natural history, first took this fabulous animalcule 

 into the domain of natural history, probably only with the 

 view of directing the attention of naturahsts to the subject. 



