332 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST [Sept. 



and long-continued heat, have sometimes exhibited living forms of 

 low organization when they have been opened. 



The first reply that suggests itself is the probability that there 

 must be some error about these experiments, because they are 

 performed on an enormous scale every day, with quite contrary 

 results. Meat, fruits, vegetables, the very materials of the most 

 fermentable and putrescible infusions, are preserved to the extent 

 I suppose I may say, of thousands of tons every year, by a method 

 which is a mere application of Spallauzani's experiment. The 

 matters to be preserved are well boiled in a tin case provided with 

 a small hole, and this hole is soldered up when all the air in the 

 case has been replaced by steam. By this method they may be 

 kept for years, without putrefying, fermenting, or getting mouldy. 

 Now this is not because oxygen is excluded, inasmuch as it is now 

 proved that free oxygen is not necessary for either fermentation 

 or putrefaction. It is not because the tins are exhausted of air, 

 for Vibriones and Bacteria live, as Pasteur has shown, without 

 air or free oxygen. It is not because the boiled meats or yege- 

 tables are not putrescible or fermentable, as those who have had 

 the misfortune to be in a ship supplied with unskillfully closed 

 tins well know. What is it, therefore, but the exclusion of the 

 germs ? I think that Abiogenists are bound to answer this ques- 

 tion before they ask us to consider new experiments of precisely 

 the same order. 



And in the next place, if the results of the experiments I refer 

 to are really trustworthy, it by no means follows that Abiogenesis 

 has taken place. The resistance of living matter to heat is known 

 to vary within considerable limits, and to depend, to some extent, 

 upon the chemical and physical qualities of the surrounding 

 medium. But if, in the present state of science, the alternative 

 is oflfered us, either germs can stand a greater heat than has been 

 supposed, or the molecules of dead matter, for no valid or intel- 

 ligible reason that is assigned, are able to re-arrange themselves 

 into living bodies, exactly such as can be demonstrated to be fre- 

 quently produced in another way, I cannot understand how choice 

 can be, even for a moment, doubtful. 



But though I cannot express this conviction of mine too strongly, 

 I must carefully guard myself against the supposition that I 

 intend to suggest that no such thing as Abiogenesis ever has taken 

 place ia the past, or ever will take place in the future. With 



