( 1239 } 
all other organisms being excluded, is not yet quite clear. But we 
return to our chief experiment. 
The bottles prepared as deseribed, arrived at Delft at a tempera- 
ture of about 25° C. and were directly placed in a thermostat at 
35°C. The result was that in all without exception, so as well 
in absence of acid as with 5 and 12 em? N phosphorie acid, already 
after some hours a distinct fermentation was visible. By and by it 
increased in vigour and after about 18 hours the sarcina had so 
much multiplied, that at the bottom of the bottles a thick layer of 
the so characteristic microbe had deposited, from which an abundant 
current of fermentation gases, consisting of carbonic acid and hydro- 
gen, mounted upwards. This state continued about 24 hours before 
the fermentation fell considerably. 
My supposition that the earlier experiments had only failed because 
the stomach contents had been too strongly cooled and aérated 
during the transit from Leiden to Delft was thus proved to be well 
founded, and now all doubt is excluded about the identity of the 
soilsarcina of the hydrogen fermentations and the sarcina of the 
stomach. 
It is of interest still to note here that in this experiment the 
addition of acid to the uutrient liquid had proved superfluous, as the 
fermentation had gone on also in the bottles without acid. In these 
latter bottles, however, many lactic-acid streptococei and lacto-bacilli 
were visible already after 18 hours’ cultivation, which was not at 
all the case in the bottles with phosphoric acid. Only the latter 
could thus be used for the continuation of the fermentation by 
inoculation into a new quantity of culture liquid, without the chance 
that the sarcina might be overgrown and expelled by the lactic-acid 
ferments. Likewise as with the sarcina of the soil, by some repeated 
transfers into the described medium, acidified with phosphorie acid 
to 18 cm? N per 100 cm’, it was possible within the course of three 
days to obtain so pure a culture of the sarcina, that inoculation into 
the malt extract without acid was successful, not any other microbes 
coming to development. 
The thus obtained fermentations have become very vigorous and 
are not to be distinguished from the best fermentations with the 
soil sarcina. 
Now that the identity of the latter and that of the stomach is 
ascertained, still the question exists how it feeds and multiplies 
at the low temperature and under the other conditions of life of 
the relatively cold soil, which must evidently be quite different 
as well from those of the stomach contents as from those of the 
