INFUSORIAN NATIONS. 



113 



PROPAGATION OF AN INFU80RIAN BY SPONTANEOUS 

 DIVISION. 



figures, A and B being the adult, c the same in course of separation, and D after com- 

 pletion. " This mode of generation, however/' says Figuier, " enables us to comprehend 



the almost miraculous multiplication of these 

 beings. The amount defies calculation, if we 

 wished to be at all precise. We may, however, 

 arrive at a proximate estimate of the aumber 

 which may be derived from a single individual 

 by this process of fission. It has been found that 

 at the end of a month two StyJonichice would 

 have a progeny of more than 1,048,000 individuals, 

 and that in a lapse of forty-two days a single 

 Paramecium could produce much more than 

 1,364,000 forms like itself." In a year it would 

 have the proud satisfaction of being the father of 

 an Infusorian nation ! 



Many of the Infusoria are subject to me- 

 tamorphoses, while others can remain long periods, 



and in a dried and torpid state, and then awake to action. One of the largest of these 



curious organisms, which sometimes actually attains to the size of the twelfth of an inch, 



is the Kondylostoma patens, remarkable for its voracity. It lives upon sea-weed, and is 



common to every shore, from the Mediterranean to the 



Baltic. 



The inhabitants of the sea are, there can be no doubt, 



much more numerous than those of the earth. Charles 



Darwin has remarked that our terrestrial forests do not 



maintain nearly so many living beings as do marine forests 



in the very bosom of the ocean. Its surface and its depths, 



its plains and its mountains, its valleys and precipices, teem 



with organisms, the like of which have no counterpart on 



the land, and which are only partly understood to-day, 



although the invention and adoption of the aquarium have 



greatly facilitated the study of them. 



Many years ago Dr. Milne-Edwards, in a voyage round 



the coast of Sicily, employed a diver's apparatus to enable 



him to descend and examine the bottom of the sea. It 



included a metallic casque and helmet, with visor or window 



of glass fitting closely by means of water-tight packing 



round the neck. It communicated with an air-pump above 



by a flexible tube ; the diver had a rope attached by which 



he could be hoisted immediately, and a signal cord to give alarm in case of need ; ne wore 



heavy lead shoes, which gave him steadiness and enabled him to maintain his upright position 



in the water. Milne-Edwards made the descent in several fathoms of water, and with 



perfect safety. Ariel's song had not to be applied to bim : 

 135 



KOXDYLOSTOMA PATENS (MAGNIFIED 

 300 TIMES). 



