XXVI. 



Germs: Ooo& ant> 



TURNING out the contents of a portmanteau the other 

 day, a pair of boots, which had evidently been deposited 

 therein in a damp condition, came to light covered 

 thickly in some parts with a growth of blue mould. 

 To the attentions of this mould, of course, no house- 

 wife is a stranger. It grows on her cheese and invades 

 her jelly-pots, and does not despise even damp boots, 

 as we have seen, in its selection of a local habitation. 

 The question of the mould's origin leads us in the 

 direction of more than one great and grave theory 

 regarding the beginnings of life at large. 



Where the mould comes from may best be answered, 

 as a philosophical query, by saying that it springs from 

 a germ or germs, derived from a parent-mould. These 

 germs, microscopic in size, are carried by the air, and 

 are given off from the parent-mould as minute living 

 particles. Like driftwood on the sea, they are borne 

 hither and thither in company with many thousands of 

 neighbour-germs, like and unlike, and when they find 

 a suitable soil (as in the cheese or the jelly) they spring 

 up into the mould whereof they are the early and 

 legitimate representatives. 



The air around us, as Tyndall long ago proved and 

 expressed it, is a " stir-about " of minute particles, 



