INFUSORIES. 155 



ments on the animalcules found in pepper water ; 

 and, subsequently, Mr. Harris made observa- 

 tions upon a variety of these minute crea- 

 tures. The subject was afterwards taken up 

 by various writers, both here and on the con- 

 tinent. Amongst these none was more eminent 

 than Spallanzani. O. F. Miiller, who seems to 

 have been the first who treated the subject sys- 

 tematically, embodied these animals in a Class 

 by the name of Infusories. 1 He was followed 

 by Bruguiere and Lamarck, who divided it into 

 Orders and Sections. But the system of these 

 zoologists has for the most part been set aside 

 by Ehrenberg, a Prussian naturalist, before-men- 

 tioned, who devoted ten years of his life to the 

 investigation of these animals, for which he was 

 particularly qualified by his previous studies and 

 employment, the anatomy of the Molluscans of 

 the Red Sea, by which he had been accustomed 

 to the use of microscopes and micrometers. His 

 researches on the Infusories, during Baron de 

 Humboldt's last journey, extend to more than 

 fifty degrees of longitude, and fourteen degrees 

 of latitude ; he went as far as Dongola in Africa, 

 and the Altai mountains in Asia, and examined 

 these animals in a great variety of situations. He 

 found them on Mount Sinai ; swarms of various 

 species in the wells of the Oasis of Jupiter 



1 Infusoria. 



