Scientific Intelligence. 421' 



an analysis of fossil bones from Schreblieim, near Schweinfurt. 

 In these bones, the bone earth was entirely removed, so that 

 they exhibited the same relations as are observed in the up- 

 filling of crystals, in the so-called after crystals. The bones 

 were imbedded in Keuper limestone, and afforded the following 

 ingredients : — sulphuric acid, 3. 437 ; carbonic acid, 4.400 ; 

 siliceous acid, 9.600 ; alumina, 63.400 ; lime, 3.589 ; magnesia, 

 0.294 ; ox. manganese, 5.954; fluor, 4.327 ; water, 5.00. 



18. On the Minute Animals found in Substances during the 

 Process of Putrefaction. — During the putrefaction of animal 

 substances, their elements are in a state of incessant change, 

 and in a condition of disturbed equilibrium, which is altered 

 and modified by the feeblest of the forces operating on it by 

 foreign materials, and foreign affinities and temperature. Such 

 a condition appears to afford the most fruitful field for the de- 

 velopment of imperfect, and of the lowest classes of animals, 

 and of microscopic animals, whose ova, as is well known, are 

 every where distributed in the most inconceivable manner ; 

 they are developed in myriads in these putrefying substances, 

 and they propagate themselves in myriads, for they appro- 

 priate to their nourishment the products of putrefaction. Many 

 naturalists regard the chemical process of putrefaction as a 

 mere consequence of the production of these animals ; this is 

 just as natural as it would be to ascribe the putrefaction of 

 wood and its decay, to the plants for whose nourishment the 

 decomposing soil serves. But these animals are not produced 

 in decomposing substances, when the condition of its presence, 

 viz. contact with the atmospheric air, is cut off, just in the 

 same way as mites do not appear in cheese when flies have no 

 access to it. This opinion falls to pieces of itself when we con- 

 sider, that, on the disappearance of the putrefying body, the 

 animals die, that, after their death, there must be a cause pre- 

 sent which produces the destruction of their organization, and 

 which determines the conversion of tlie component parts of 

 their muscles and organs into new solid and gaseous products. 

 This cause is, therefore, ultimately a chemical process. — {Pro- 

 fessor Liebig in Poggendorff'^s Annalen) 



