254 NOTES AND MEMORANDA. ['jZmll.Ma'^t mo"' 



types of high organization at great depths, and their attainment of a 

 size that is only paralleled in much warmer latitudes, or in the Ter- 

 tiary or yet older formations. This is especially the case with the 

 Cristellarian group, which has a long geological range, and also with 

 the Milioline, of which specimens of unprecedented size presented 

 themselves. The most interesting novelty was a beautiful Orhitolite, 

 which, when complete, must have had the diameter of a sixpence, but 

 which, from its extreme tenuity, always broke in the process of col- 

 lection. Of Ai-enaceous Foraminifera, however, which construct testa 

 by cementing together sand-grains, instead of producing shells, the 

 number of new types is such as seriously to task our power of inventing 

 appropriate generic names. Many of these tyj^es have a remarkable 

 resemblance to forms previously known in the Chalk, the natui-e of 

 which had not been recognized. Some of them throw an important 

 light on the structure of two gigantic arenaceous types from the 

 Upper Greensand, recently described by Dr. Carpenter and Mr. H. B. 

 Brady, an account of which will appear in the forthcoming part of the 

 ' Philosophical Transactions ;' and there is one which can be certainly 

 identified with a form lately discovered by Mr. H. B. Brady in a clay- 

 bed of the Carboniferous Limestone. 



NOTES AND MEMOKANDA. 



Nobert's Nineteenth Band. — With reference to the observation 

 of this band, we beg to call the attention of our readers to two im- 

 portant letters on this subject which appear in our Correspondence. 

 Doubtless our English microscopists will have much to say in reply, 

 and we shall be glad to publish their answers in oiu" next issue if 

 possible. 



The Spontaneous Generation Theory. — In connection with the 

 somewhat fierce controversy on this subject which has taken place 

 between Professor Tyndall and Dr. Bastian, the latter states some 

 facts of interest. Dr. Bastian says that from his investigations he 

 has come to the conclusion that organisms are to be met with in 

 hermetically-sealed vessels from which all air has been removed, and 

 after the contained fluids have been raised to a very high temperature. 

 He and Dr. Frankland have placed solutions containing organic matter 

 and other ingredients in flasks, exhausted the flasks of the aii- they 

 contained, by means of Sprengel's pump, and then hermetically-sealed 

 the di-awn-out necks of the flasks in the blow-pipe flame. The airless 

 flasks containing then the fluid itself, as the only possible germ-con- 

 taining material, were submitted in a suitable apparatus by Professor 

 Frankland to a temperature varying from 148° C. to 152° C. for four 

 hours, and yet after having been placed under the influence of suitable 

 conditions, in the course of a few weeks living organisms — many of 



