
_ EXPERIMENTS WITH SALINE SOLUTIONS 237 
organic media. So that in the communication above 
referred to the following statement was made :— 
“The growth of these less vigorous Bacteria is now decidedly 
less rapid, and seems only capable of occurring at all freely 
when aided by daylight. In the flask on the table the fluid 
will become slightly opalescent in four or five days, and this 
opalescence increases for a few days, when a sediment begins 
to form. But the fluid in the incubator may show no distinct 
opalescence even for a couple of weeks or more, though a very 
minute amount of sediment will accumulate.” 
In many of the experiments about to be recorded 
Ihave similarly found, as already intimated, some 
solutions very much more productive under the 
influence of diffuse daylight than when kept in the 
incubator at a temperature even 35-40 F. higher— 
so that this influence of diffuse daylight will be found 
to be a point of considerable importance.! 
Would rt be advantageous in these Experiments to 
use Uviol or Rock-Crystal Tubes ? 
A related point to that just dealt with has engaged 
my attention, though the observations hitherto made 
have not been sufficiently numerous or decisive to 
enable me to arrive at any definite conclusions. | 
! Yet the brief communication announcing this new contribution 
to “natural knowledge” was not, on the advice of referees, deemed 
worthy of a place in Zhe Proceedings of the Royal Society in which I 
wished it toappear. It seems somewhat absurd that one of the senior 
Fellows of the Royal Society should have his communications referred 
to other Fellows who have made no special observations on the 
subject dealt with, and that they should practically decide, without 
communicating with the author, whether a paper is or is not to appear 
in The Proceedings of the Society. 
