238 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVEEY. 



Pasteur arrives at the conviction that the well-known process of man- 

 ufacturing vinegar by allowing a suitable liquid to trickle over wood 

 twigs or shavings, is not, as was supposed, a purely chemical process, 

 but dependent upon the formation of a pellicle of the vinegar-plant. 

 The important paper from which we have condensed these observa- 

 tions concludes in these words : " If the mycoclerms possessed solely 

 the property of acting as agents for the combustion of alcohol and 

 acetic acid, their performance would be well worth attention ; but I 

 recognize in their functions a generality of action which opens afield 

 for new researches in physiology and organic chemistry. In fact, the 

 mycoderms are able to bring about the combustion of a great num- 

 ber of organic substances, such as sugars, organic acids, various alco- 

 hols, and albuminoid matters, giving rise in some cases to intermedi- 

 ate compounds, of which I have recognized a few. I may add that 

 the property which we are discussing exists in various degrees among 

 the mueidines, and I believe also among the smallest of the infusoria. 

 I have observed that by the development of a mueidine it is possible 

 to transform into carbonic acid and water considerable quantities of 

 sugar, so that scarcely any of that substance shall be left in solution. 

 If microscopic, beings disappeared from our globe, its surface would 

 be encumbered with dead organic matter and carcasses of all kinds, 

 animal and vegetable. It is they who chiefly give to oxygen its 

 combustion-producing qualities. Without them life would be impos- 

 sible, for the work of death would be incomplete. After death, life 

 reappears under another form, and with new properties. The germs, 

 everywhere disseminated, of microscopic beings, commence their 

 evolutions, and by their aid oxygen is combined in enormous masses 

 with the organic substances, and their combustion gradually ren- 

 dered complete. If I may be permitted to characterize briefly 

 another point of view to which we have been conducted, I would say 

 that we obscure the existence of organized cellules endowed with a 

 property of completely burning organic masses with considerable 

 evolution of heat, or of carrying their oxidation to a variable extent. 

 This is a faithful image of the respiration and combustion which take 

 place in the pulmonary cells through the circulation of the blood, 

 whose globules seek oxygen from the air, in order that they may burn 

 in various degrees the different principles of the human economy." 



THE ORIGIN OF HONEY. 



The following is an abstract of a paper on the above subject re- 

 cently read before the Bristol (England) Microscopical Society, by 

 W. W. Stoddard : Although honey is a familiar body it is curious 

 to note how little mention is made in any chemical or botanical work 

 of the changes that take place in its elimination, of its origin, or 

 even of its composition. Most chemical authorities simply state that 

 the solid crystalline portion of honey is grape-sugar, but say nothing 

 of the liquid. Johnson, in his Chemistry of Common Life, says 

 * 4 Honey is formed or deposited naturally in the nectaries of flowers, 

 and is extracted therefrom by the bees. When allowed to stand for 

 some time, it separates into a white, solid sugar, consisting of white 

 crystals, and a thick, semifluid syrup. Both the solid and liquid 



