2904 THE WORLD VOR, TEEN SEA. 
But the exact Spallanzani was not likely to hazard a statement 
which he had not fully established, and in due time a numerous 
list of experiments fully confirmed the extraordinary fact that 
the rotifers were the Rip van Winkles of the ocean community, 
and could sleep through a lapse of animalcule ages, and again 
awake to play their part in the act of life then progressing. To 
cause these little creatures to perform this extraordinary feat, 
they must be slowly and cautiously dried; they must not be 
violently pressed, nor submitted to a too-elevated temperature 
while they are yet moist, and when the awakening time arrives, 
the process of resuscitation must be slow. 
The common rotifer (Rotifer redivivus), which exhibits this 
incomprehensible phenomenon, is an inhabitant of fresh water, or 
rather of moist moss, which is found on walls and roofs, and has 
wheels seven or eight times less than its body, which is about 
one-fiftieth of an inch long. The marine rotifers do not return 
to life after undergoing the drying process. How is it that the 
fresh-water species is so very much more retentive of life than its 
marine representative ? 
