INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. liu 



> of thefe animals living torpid, and not deftroyedj 

 though bottled up in a phial of brandy many 

 weeks. It is rational to fuppofe that fome ani- 

 mals may fuffer very long immerfion in water 

 without the vital principle being extinguiflied ; 

 at leaft, not nearly fo foon as has been fup- 

 pofed . 



The fuccefs of naturalUls in reviving the wheel 

 animal has been very various. Muller never faw 

 it recover after being two minutes dry, unlefs in- 

 volved in fome terrellrial fubflance. Fontana 

 revived it after being dry two years. Virey 

 thinks no organifed being can dry without death, 

 nor that the complete deficcation of animalcula 

 can happen, unlefs to their deitruftion. — Is it 

 pofTible to conceive, that any portion of humidi- 

 ty remains when an animal has been a-year out 

 of water, its native element, and the whole or- 

 ganic fundlions interrupted, or that its own fluids 

 are not contraded, hardened, and dried up. Yet, 

 in addition to the inflances of animals that have 

 remained dry two, fix, or twenty-feven years, 

 and then come to hfe, it is confidently alferted 

 that the hair worm will revive after long deficca- 

 tion ; and there is an account tolerably well au- 

 thenticated, though 1 do not confider it abfolute 

 proof, of fnails reviving when put in water after 

 they had been kept in a cabinet fixteen years, 



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