39 



Chodat (1896) reported that spores of the mould, 

 Mucor, spread on agar or suspended in licinid Raulin's 

 medium and put for 2 hours in a freezing chamber at 



- 70° to - 110°, germinated, but with a considerable delay 

 over the controls. The filaments originating from the 

 treated spores were 1 cm. long when those from the con- 

 trols were 2 to 3 cm. 



Alexopoulos and Drummond (1934) exposed to the ac- 

 tion of liquid air for 1 hour the spores of the fungi, Melan- 

 conium, Comothijrium, Euroiium, and Cytospora, either 

 suspended in sterile water or inoculated on corn meal agar 

 slants (in both instances they were contained in test tubes) 

 or dried on a glass rod. In all cases, germination and 

 normal growth followed. 



According to Kadisch (1931), the spores of some 10 

 species of pathogenic filamentous fungi {Epidermophytes) 

 could resist - 20° to - 30° for at least 34 days. In liquid 

 air, some species were killed in one hour, others in 24 

 hours, still others in 48 hours, while some were not at all 

 affected. Further experiments of Kadisch showed that 

 two species (called the Acli. Gyps, and Kaufmaun Wolf's 

 fungus) survived after respectively 3 and 50 hours at 

 -252° and were not killed either by a stay of 2 hours 

 at - 268° followed by 4 hours at - 268.8° and 1^ hours at 



- 272°. 



Becquerel made a series of observations on the germi- 

 nation of various spores and of pollen after exposure to 

 the temperature of liquid gases. His results are sum- 

 marized in the following paragraphs. 



Spores of 4 kinds of phycomycefes {Mucor, Rliizopus, 

 Sterigfnatocystis and Aspergillus), thoroughly dried and 

 sealed in tubes where the vacuum was made to 10* cm. of 

 mercury, were immersed in liquid hydrogen for 77 hours. 

 They were then left 2 years in the vacuum. Germination 

 was normal (Becquerel, 1910). 



Spores of 6 genera of mosses {Dicranella, AtricJium, 

 Hypnum, Leucohryuw, Funaria and Brachythecium), not 

 specially dried, were immersed for 10 days in liquid nitro- 



