614 Original Articles. [ Oct., 
known forms of protozoa (if they do not go still further) which are 
found in infusions. And upon what biological evidence do they 
claim a scientific status for their doctrine ? 
Mainly on the ground, as already observed, that when they have 
sought to exclude the air from infusions (no doubt as conscientiously 
as possible), there have, after a certain time, appeared in them 
“monads,”’ “bacteriums,’ and “vibriones;” these objects being, 
generally speaking, and notwithstanding their high-sounding appel- 
lation, minute moving specks, or lines, even under highest micro- 
scopical powers, and concerning which the least scientific reader 
knows just as much as the most learned investigator. 
In this, the popular sense of the term ‘‘ spontaneous generation,” 
T am certainly no believer ; and I have little doubt that the time is 
not far distant when all those lowly types, now known as protozoa, 
will be traced in their earliest stages to the atmosphere, the dust of 
the road, of our parlour windows, and indeed in every place into 
which dust and air penetrate. 
It is the common-sense explanation of their presence; for what 
is more natural than that, along with the dust, which is dried mud, 
the wind should also waft about the light zoospores of those minute 
forms of which the stagnant pool is the habitat? And it is the solution 
strictly in accordance with scientific experience, for, without reference 
to the great homogenetic law traceable through the whole organic 
realm, we have the indubitable fact, that the more lowly the organisms, 
the more widely are their reproductive principles diffused in the 
elements. 
ON THE FORMATION OF CORAL (Corallium rubrum). 
By Professor H. Lacazn Dururers (Hcole Normale supérieure, 
Paris). 
Corau has been in request from the earliest times for the purpose of 
personal adornment, while its form and properties, which denote at 
one and the same time the plant and the stone, so masking its real 
origin, have excited the curiosity alike of the fashionable wearer and 
of the devotee of science. Its true nature has, however, only been 
recognized within the last hundred or hundred and fifty years. This 
has been, in a great measure, due to the absolute impossibility of 
arriving at any accurate conclusion on the subject without close 
observation of the animal while living, and to the great difficulty of 
meeting with it in this condition. As soon as it is removed from the 
water it dies, and even though preserved in fresh and constantly 
renewed water, with the most scrupulous care, it still too often 
speedily perishes. To obtain, therefore, the opportunity for close 
examination, one course only is open to the inquirer; he must be 
present at the capture of the animal, and proceed at once with his 
