Dombrowski: Bacteria from Paleozoic Salt Deposits 457 



absolute accord in the morphological characteristics between the Paleozoic and 

 the Recent representatives of the Bacillus circulans. (5) This leads us to be- 

 lieve that the genes responsible for the morphological differentiation are much 

 more stable than those leading to the biochemical characteristics of a species. 

 There is no doubt that this goes for other species as well, but at the moment 

 we are only considering Bacillus circulans. 



We could not have made these statements, if this species did not have the 

 characteristic of migration. Relying only on the peripherally whipped bac- 

 terium and its micromorphology, as with Bacillus circulans, any definite deter- 

 mination would have been impossible. Even biochemical investigations and 

 comparisons would lead nowhere, because there are great doubts concerning 

 the cjuestion of whether or not characteristics of the Paleozoic germs came to a 



4 





Figure 3. Bacterial strain VIII/D from the Middle-Devonian, enlargement 1200:1. 



further development in Recent types. Therefore, it should be very difficult to 

 show the identity of other types of bacteria, isolated in mineral salts, with 

 Recent species beyond the probable affinity to a species. 



If all of these considerations were true, then it should be possible to cultivate 

 bacteria from salts of even older origin than those of the Permian age, provided 

 that these salts come from regions where no tectonic movement had occurred 

 since their original formation. These experiments had positive results. In 

 FIGURE 3 are shown bacteria from Middle-Devonian salts from Saskatchewan. 

 All in all we achieved the isolation of six different species from Middle-Devonian 

 salts. We were also fortunate to be able to isolate three different species from 

 Silurian salts, coming from Meyers, New York (figure 4). 



Because it was possible to cultivate 2 bacterial species out of Precambrian salt 

 specimens from Irkutsk, we have reached a sort of absolute level of research. 

 It is highly improbable that scientists will find even older individual life than 

 Precambrian, alread}^ approximately 650 million years old. 



In FIGURE 5 is shown a bacterium from the Precambrian salt after silver 



