UMVEESALITY OF ANIMAL LIF15. 315 



While, on the loftiest summits of the Alps, only Lecidea., 

 Parmeliae, and Umbilicariaj cast their colored but scanty 

 covering over the rocks, exposed by the melted snovi^, beauti- 

 ful phanerogamic plants, as the Culcitium rufescens, Sida 

 pinchinchensis, and Saxifraga Boussingaulti, are still found 

 to flourish in the tropical region of the chain of the Andes, at 

 an elevation of more than 15,000 feet. Thermal springs con- 

 tain small insects (Hydroporus thermalis), Gallionellse, Oscilla- 

 toria, and Conferva?, while their waters bathe the root-fibers o{ 

 phanerogamic plants. As air and water are animated at dif- 

 ferent temperatures by the presence of vital organisms, so like- 

 wise is the interior of the different portions of animal bodies. 

 Animalcules have been found in the blood of the frog and the 

 salmon ; according to Nordmann, the fluids in the eyes of fishes 

 are often filled with a worm that lives by suction (Diplosto- 

 mum), while in the gills of the bleak the same observer has 

 discovered a remarkable double animalcule (Diplozoon para- 

 doxum), having a cross-shaped form with two heads and two 

 caudal extremities. 



Althoujrh the existence of meteoric Infusoria is more than 

 doubtful, it can not be denied that, in the same manner a3 the 

 pollen of the flowers of the pine is observed every year to fall 

 from the atmosphere, minute infusorial animalcules may like- 

 wise be retained for a time in the strata of the air, after hav- 

 ing been passively borne up by currents of aqueous vapor.* 

 This circumstance merits serious attention in reconsidering 

 tlie old discussion respecting spontaneous generation,! and the 



* Ehreiiberg, op. cit., s. xiv., p. 122 and 493. This rapid multiplica 

 tiou of microscopic organisms is, iu the case of some (as, for instance, 

 in wheat-eels, wheel-auiraals, and water-bears or tardigrade animal- 

 cules), accompanied by a remarkable tenacity of life. They have been 

 Been to come to life from a state of apparent death after being dried 

 for twenty-eight days in a vacuum with chloride of lime and suljihuric 

 fccid, and after being exposed to a heat of 243^^. See the beautiail ex- 

 periments of Doy ere, in Mim. sur les Tardicrrades et sur leur propri^ti 

 de revenir a la vie, 1842, p. 119, 129, 131, 133. Compare, also, Ehreu 

 bei'g, s. 492-496, on the revival of animalcules that had been dried 

 during a space of many years. 



t On the supposed '• primitive transformation" of organized or unor 

 ganized matter into plants and animals, see Ehrenberg, in Poggen- 

 dorf's Annalen der Physik, bd. xxiv., s. 1-48, and also his Infusions- 

 thierchen, s. 121, 525, and Joh. MiiUer, Physiologic dcs Menscheii (4te 

 Aufl., 1844), bd. i., s. 8-17. It appears to me worthy of notice that one 

 of the early fathers of the Church, St. Augustine, in treating of the 

 question how islands may have been covered with new animals and 

 plants after the flood, shows himself in no way disinclined to adopt the 

 \'ew of the so-called "spautaneous generation" {gencratlo ccqnivoca. 



P 2 



