UNIVERSALITY OF ANIMAL LIFE. 345 



While, on the loftiest summits of the Alps, only Lecidese, 

 Parmeliae, and Umbilicariai cast their colored but scanty 

 covering over the rocks, exposed by the melted snow, beauti- 

 ful phanerogamic plants, as the Culcitiura rufescens, Sida 

 pinchinchensis, and Saxifraga Boussingaulti, are still found 

 to flourish in the tropical region of the chain of the Andes, at 

 an elevation of more than 15,000 feet. Thermal springs con- 

 tain small insects (Hydroporus thermalis), Gallionellae, Oscilla- 

 toria, and Confervse, while their waters bathe the root-fibers of 

 phanerogamic plants. As air and water are animated at dif- 

 ferent temperatures by the presence of vital organisms, so like- 

 wise is the interior of the different portions of animal bodies. 

 Animalcules have been found in the blood of the frog and the 

 salmon ; according to Nordmann, the fluids in the eyes of fishes 

 are often filled with a worm that lives by suction (Diplosto- 

 mum), while in the gills of the bleak the same observer has 

 discovered a remarkable double animalcule (Diplozoon para- 

 doxum), having a cross-shaped form with two heads and two 

 caudal extremities. 



Although the existence of meteoric Infusoria is more than 

 doubtful, it can not be denied that, in the same manner as the 

 pollen of the flowers of the pine is observed every year to fall 

 from the atmosphere, minute infusorial animalcules may like- 

 wise be retained for a time in the strata of the air, after hav- 

 ing been passively borne up by currents of aqueous vapor.* 

 This circumstance merits serious attention in reconsidering 

 the old discussion respecting sjwntaneous generation,! and the 



* Ehrenberg, op. cit., s. xiv., p. 122 and 493. This rapid multiplica- 

 tion of microscopic organisms is, in the case of some (as, for instance, 

 ia wheat-eels, wheel-animals, and water-bears or tardigrade animal- 

 cules), accompanied by a remarkable tenacity of life. They have been 

 seen to come to life from a state of apparent death after being dried 

 for twenty-eight days in a vacuum with chloride of lime and sulphuric 

 acid, and after being exposed to a heat of 248°. See the beautiful ex- 

 periments of Doyere, in M6jn. sur les Tardigrades et sur leur propriety 

 de revenir a la vie, 1842, p. 119, 129, 131, 133. Compare, also, Ehren 

 berg, s. 492-496, on the revival of animalcules that had been dried 

 during a space of many years. 



t On the supposed ''primitive transformation" of organized or uuor 

 ganized matter into plants and animals, see Ehrenberg, in Poggen- 

 dorf's Annalen der Physik. bd. xxiv., s. 1—48, and also his Infusions- 

 thierchen, s. 121, 525, and Joh. Miiller, Physiologic des Menschen (4te 

 Aufl., 1844), bd. i., s. 8-17. It appears to me worthy of notice that one 

 of the early fathers of the Church, St. Augiistino. in treating of the 

 question how islands may have been covered with new animals and 

 plants after the flood, shows himself in no way disinclined to adopt the 

 view of the so-called " spontaneous generation" (generatio cpquivoca, 



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