178 LEISURE-TIME STUDIES. 



proceedings of the French Academicians, as reported in our 

 scientific serials, cannot be imagined. It certainly reflects 

 no credit upon the members of that Commission that they 

 allowed petty squabbles of a personal kind to interfere with 

 the discharge of their grave functions as judges in a most 

 important controversy. The only excuse, indeed, which can 

 be urged in palliation of the Academicians' conduct, is that 

 they hardly appear to have appreciated the dignity or 

 importance of the office to which they had been elected. 

 One is tempted, after reading the correspondence which 

 passed between Dr. Bastian and the Commission, to feel 

 grateful with Professor Huxley that our own Royal Society 

 has never had anything of an " academic constitution : " 

 whilst the remembrance of the case of poor Jean Andre de 

 Peysonnel, the accredited emissary of the Academy, and of 

 the " shelving " of his reports on coral, does not serve to 

 prejudice one in favour of that learned body's habits of fair 

 dealing either with strangers or with its own kith and kin. 

 The case before us may serve as a text for remark on the 

 absence of any Scientific Court of Appeal or responsible 

 tribunal to which questions in dispute might be referred. Is 

 it too much to expect or believe that the verdict of a special 

 jury or commission, given after hearing evidence, and regarded 

 by the world at large as the most trustworthy of opinions, 

 would be considered satisfactory and final in matters of 

 scientific controversy? In any case, we apprehend, the 

 solution of this, or of any other grave question, will not be 

 sought for across the Channel, by English savants at least. 



Professor Tyndall has recently published an important 

 report detailing the results of a series of experiments on hay 

 infusions, in which he has been for some time engaged ; 

 these experiments possessing an important bearing on the 

 causes which favour or destroy the vitality of atmospheric 

 germs. Tyndall remarks that infusions of hay " boiled for 

 five minutes, and exposed to air purified spontaneously 

 or freed from its floating matter by calcination or filtration, 

 never showed the least competence to kindle into life." 



