NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 
Discussion on Spontaneous Generation at the French Academy.— 
We take for granted that our readers are aware of the present 
state of the controversy in France relative to the question of 
spontaneous generation. M. Pouchet, in his important work 
‘ Hétérogénie,’ had replied to all the objections which the 
antagonists of spontaneous generation had previously made, 
including those which were founded on the valuable researches 
of Schultze. Professor Wyman, of Boston (U.S.), arrived 
independently at the same conclusions as M. Pouchet, the 
general result of his experiments being that the boiled 
infusions of organic matter made use of, exposed only to air 
which had passed through tubes heated to redness, or enclosed 
with air in hermetically sealed vessels, and exposed to boiling 
water, became the seat of infusorial life. M. Pasteur has 
long been the leading opponent of this theory; and whilst a 
series of experiments which he submitted to the Paris 
Academy of Sciences some time ago met many of the 
arguments which Pouchet had brought forward, he furthermore 
stated that it was always possible to obtain, in a given 
locality, an appreciable but limited amount of atmospheric air 
not having undergone any sort of physical or chemical 
modification, and nevertheless entirely unfit to produce any 
alteration whatever in a liquid especially putrescible. MM. 
Pouchet, Joly, and Musset, in their desire to meet this objec- 
tion, ascended the glaciers of La Maladetta, near Rencluse, in 
the Pyrenees, taking with them a certain number of flasks 
each filled one third with an infusion of hay filtered and 
boiled for more than an hour. No air was contained in the 
flasks, and care was taken that they were hermetically closed. 
Four of them were filled with air on the surface of the 
glacier and four in a crevasse. The examination of four of 
the flasks three days afterwards disclosed many specimens of 
Bacteria, Monas, Vibrio, Mucedinea, and Ameba. They 
state, however, in a note, that all the other retorts presented 
identical results. From this the three experimentalists 
