83 



of the mountain limestone, to have been warmer than at present, as 

 derived from its contained organic remains, was detective, since the 

 organisms compared did not belong to individuals of the same species, 

 but to species of similar genera. 



2. On the principle of Vital Affinity, as illustrated by recent 

 Observations in Organic Chemistry. Part I. By Dr 

 Alison. 



The objects of this paper were, Jirst, to vindicate the use of the 

 term affinity, and assert the principle which that term is intended to 

 express, viz., that in living bodies ordinary chemical affinities under- 

 go a certain change or modification, either by the addition of affini- 

 ties peculiar to the living state, or the suspension of some of those 

 which act elsewhere ; and, secondly, to attempt, from a review of 

 facts recently ascertained, an exposition of the laws, according to 

 which these modifications of ordinary chemical affinities take place, 

 and a discrimination of those changes in living bodies, which may be 

 ascribed to them. 



In proof of the first of these points, the author referred particu- 

 larly to the facts known as to the formation of starch, or its allied 

 compounds, from carbonic acid and water by an action of certain 

 parts of living vegetables under the influence of light, whereby the 

 carbonic acid is decomposed and oxygen evolved ; maintaining that 

 this change, essential to the condition of all organized bodies, is so 

 distinctly at variance with the ordinary chemical relations of carbon 

 and oxygen, and even with those which shew themselves in other 

 parts of vegetables in the living state, and in all parts in the dead 

 state, — that we are equally bound to regard it as a strictly vital 

 phenomenon, as the contraction of a muscle on a stimulus ; and that 

 we cannot rightly apprehend either phenomenon unless we regard 

 them a.s dependent on certain laws of vital action or of vitality. 



On the second point, he observed, that the physiologist is con- 

 cerned only with tho.se formations and resolutions of organic com- 

 pounds which take place in the interior of living bodies, and that, 

 premising that the first introduction of every species of organized 

 being into the world must have been by a miraculous interposition 

 of Divine Power, beyond the limits of .scientific inquiry, the objects 

 of investigation in this department of physiology appear to be more 

 definite, and the strictly vital affinities which now operate, from the 

 commencement of the life of vegetables to the death and decomposi- 



