276 Remarks on Spontaneous Generation. [Monin Niro 
Dr. Hughes Bennett says,* “ Although the constituents of air 
vary in different places, infusoria produced in all of them are 
identically the same.” 
Thus we have protomonads from Dr. Bastian’s solutions, from 
Vaucheria ; from decayed fish, from decomposing meat, and from air 
the same “ minute dots,” living specks, or invisible germs ; and that 
these “minute dots,” dot-like projections, &., are the early stages 
of the developed forms of Monas Lens, Kolpoda, Uvella, Para- 
moecium, Amoeba, Gonidium, Euglena, Oscillatoria, Lyngbya, and 
many of the Vorticelle, I think no one who has been in the habit 
of watching vegetable infusions and the unicellular Algz can doubt. 
And in these observations we see so much of the law “ab ovo” that 
it renders us‘still rather sceptical as to the validity of the “de 
novo” theory. 
The following experiment may be of interest :— 
July 26th.—Put a solution of tartarate of ammonia into a 2-oz. 
bottle, half air; corked and sealed it up. 
July 30th—Liquid clear. A few patches of a sort of pellicle. 
No Leptothrix threads, or any moving life. 
Aug. 13th.— Liquid opalescent, as if milk had been added. No 
distinct Leptothrix. A large quantity of granular matter, as if a 
pellicle. ; 
At the same time put 1 oz. of the solution into 2-oz. bottle, with 
six drops of Condy’s fluid. I then passed a piece of oiled silk, con- 
taining some charcoal heated to redness, with some carbolic acid. 
Then corked it, and sealed over tight with sealing-wax. 
On August 5th I passed two needles through the cork, and 
connected them with a slight galvanic current. 
Aug. 14th.—The liquid is perfectly clear, but of a light straw 
colour, from the permanganate. 
Talso placed a portion of the liquid in an evaporating dish, and 
on August 11th found a large quantity of Leptothrix filaments. 
One suggestion occurs to me in reading Dr. Bastian’s remarks, 
September 22, 1870 :— 
The heat of 153°C. may so alter the primordial utricle of the 
cell as to devive it, but after a time in a cooler temperature it may 
be revived; the vital power not having been so far destroyed as 
to admit of the destructive agents from without overcoming the 
constructive power from within. 
* ©Pop. Sci. Rev.,’ Jan., 1869. 
