Minute Organisms. 101 



have preserved their vitahty during geological epochs, it would be 

 difficult to assign any reason why mere lapse of time, however 

 great, should necessarily destroy life capable of remaining dormant 

 for a s|:»ace like 1600 years. 



"With regard to the existence of organisms in minerals, reference 

 may be made to the experiments of 3Ir. Staniland Wake, recorded in 

 the March number (1870) of the ' Monthly Microscopical Journal.' 



Fimgi, and other minute organisms related to them, grow under 

 many cii'cumstances where their nutrition might have been declared 

 impracticable, and preserve theu' vitality at temperatures which, 

 without proof to the contrary, would be considered as necessarily 

 destructive. Mr. Berkeley observes that solutions of arsenic, sul- 

 phate of iron, sulphate of copper, &c., though highly concentrated, 

 do not prevent the growth of some fungi of a low order ; and he 

 cites the ' Nereis Borealis Americana,' to the effect that a few years 

 ago a httle mould was very troublesome to the department of Coast 

 Survey at "Washington, developing itself in copper solutions used 

 for electrotyping, decomposing the salt, assimilating the acid, and 

 precipitating the metal round its own threads. I have found a mould 

 very fond of growing in saturated solutions of calcic and magnesic 

 chlorides. The growth of an analogous mould in dialyzed solutions 

 of sUica in distilled water was brought under the notice of the So- 

 ciety some time back by Mr. Eoberts and myself, and solutions of 

 phosphate of soda in ordinary use are usually found by Professor 

 Church in his laboratory in the Eoyal Agricultui'al College, Ciren- 

 cester, to become green with a vegetable growth. In the solutions 

 of citric and tartaric acids he finds colourless or grey plants appear. 

 He states, in a note to me, " My experiments were chiefly made 

 with these three hquids, and I obtained some very curious results 

 by transferring the plant of one solution to another solution. On one 

 occasion I removed all the phosphoric acid and potash from a solu- 

 tion of citric acid, to which I had added a httle phosphate of potash, 

 by introducing a fi-agment of a fungus from tartaric acid into it." 



M. Bechamp mentions a very curious case in the following 

 terms. He says : " I took very pm-e distilled water, and exposed 

 it to the contact of air in a phial closed with paper. Colouidess 

 moulds appeared, formed of microzymes, very small bacteria, and 

 an extremely fine mycehum. The apparatus was put on a stove 

 and at the end of six months I obtained enough alcohol to give a 

 lai'ge flame. At the same time a small quantity of volatile acid 

 and of ammonia was formed." He asks : " Shall we say that distilled 

 water, carbonic acid, and the elements of air have fermented ? Evi- 

 dently not ; but we may say that the moulds grew and effected the 

 synthesis of the materials composing theu' own substance, as all 

 vegetables do, and that they then gave off" the alcohol which they 

 formed by the aid of this substance." 



