INVEETEBEATA, CEYPTOGAMIA, MICEOSCOPY, ETC. 135 



about to form spores, which are cyliudrical, and produced one in 

 each cylindrical segment. They are spherical, 5 yu, in diameter, and 

 the largest hitherto known in the family. 



Spirillum amyliferum, a new Bacterium.*— In investigating the 

 Bacillus Amylobacter produced in the process of sugar-refining,! Van 

 Tieghem has discovered, growing side by side with it under the same 

 conditions of nutrition, a new Spirillum. The filament, curved to the 

 right in a rigid helix, is from 12 to 15 /x in diameter ; when isolated, 

 it makes from two to four turns of the spiral. After ceasing to 

 increase in length, it becomes considerably thicker, and develops starch 

 in two distinct places. At each of these places is then formed a bright 

 spore, oval in form, and measuring from 25 to 80 /x in length, and 

 about 15 in breadth. The protoplasm and the starch then disappear, 

 and give place to a hyaline fluid, and each spore is enclosed in a thin 

 cell-wall, and ultimately set at liberty from the filament. On germi- 

 nating it protrudes a tube through the exospore, which at once begins 

 to curve. It then forms a septum in its middle, and subsequently 

 two others, then dividing in the middle into two, and finally into 

 four independent filaments. Like B. Amylohader, Sjnrillum amyli- 

 ferum can live without free oxygen, and may become an energetic 

 ferment. 



Existence of Bacteria or their Germs in the Healthy Organs of 

 Animals.t — Chiene and Ewart stated § that neither bacteria nor their 

 germs exist in the healthy organs of animals. Nencki and Giacosa, 

 however, find by experimenting, first, with slices of organs of a rabbit 

 extracted with great care under a spray of carbolic acid and dipped 

 into a bath of molten Wood's metal (m. p. 75°) until the metal solidi- 

 fied round the fibre, and secondly, with the organs collected in tubes 

 filled with mercury and placed in a bath of this metal at 120° and then 

 allowed to stand some days at 40°, that in both instances putrefaction 

 set in after a few days. The temperature to which the metals were 

 heated before experiment was sufficiently high to destroy all germs, 

 and to prevent the entrance of the latter from the air, as the baths 

 were covered with a layer of carbolic acid solution. 



Absorption of Bacteria into the Air.||— J. Soyka has contrived an 

 apparatus by wliich he is able to measure the power of curreuts of air 

 of different velocity to raise bacteria-spores produced in putrescent 

 fluids. He found that a velocity of 3 cm. in the second was suflicient 

 for this purpose, when accompanied by evai)oration from the surface of 

 the fluid. From this he concludes that bacteria may be taken up into 

 the air in great quantities, even when thero is hardly sufficieut motion 

 to produce a perceptible current. 



• 'Bull. Soc. Bot. France,' xxvii. (1879) p. G5. 



t See tliis Jnurniil, ii. (1879) p. 928. 



t • Journ. Prakt. Chcm.,' xx. (1879) p. 34; see 'Journ. Chem. Soc.,' 1879. 

 Abstr., p. lOlG. 



§ 'Journ. Anal, and Physiol.,' 1878, p. 418. 



II 'SB. math.-phya. Klasse der Miincliciier Akad.,' 1879, p. 140; sec ' Natur- 

 forscher,' xii. (1879) p. 386. 



