1 10 OF THE INORGANIC 



seeds cannot attain maturity unless supplied with 

 the constituents of those matters. 



When we find sea-plants near our salt-works, 

 several hundred miles distant from the sea, we 

 know that their seeds have been carried there in a 

 very natural manner, namely, by wind or birds, 

 which have spread them over the whole surface of 

 the earth, although they grow only in those places in 

 which they find the conditions essential to their life. 



Numerous small fish, of not more than two 

 inches in length ( ' Gasterosteus aculeatus), are found 

 in the salt-pans of the graduating house at Nidda 

 (a village in Hesse Darmstadt). No living animal 

 is found in the salt-pans of Neuheim, situated about 

 18 miles from Nidda ; but the water there contains 

 so much carbonic acid and lime, that the walls of 

 the graduating house are covered with stalactites. 

 Hence the eggs conveyed to this place by birds do 

 not find the conditions necessary for their develop- 

 ment, which they found in the former place *. 



* " The itch-insect (Acarus Scabiei) is considered by Burdach as the 

 production of a morbid condition, so likewise lice in children ; the 

 original generation of the fresh- water muscle (mytiltu) in fish-ponds, of 

 sea-plants in the vicinity of salt-works, of nettles and grasses, of fish in 

 pools of rain, of trout in mountain streams, &c , is according to the 

 same natural philosopher not impossible." A soil consisting of crum- 

 bled rocks, decayed vegetables, rain and salt water, &c., is here supposed 

 to possess the power of generating shell-fish, trout, and saltworts (sali- 

 cornia). All inquiry is arrested by such opinions, when propagated by 

 a teacher who enjoys a merited reputation, obtained by knowledge and 

 hard labour. These subjects, however, have hitherto met with the most 

 superficial observation, although they well merit strict investigation. 

 The dark, the secret, the mysterious, the enigmatic, is, in fact, too 



