1870 SPONTANEOUS GENERATION 17 



connected with any commercial undertaking. What has 

 become of the scheme I do not know, but 1 doubt whether 

 it would be of any use to you, even if any connection 

 could be established. 



As soon as you have any statement of your project 

 ready, send it to me and I will take care that it is brought 

 prominently before the British public so as to stir up 

 their minds. And then we will have a regular field-day 

 about it in Section D at Liverpool. 



Let me know your new ideas about insects and 

 vertebrata as soon as possible, and I promise to do my 

 best to pull them to pieces. What between Kowalewsky 

 and his Ascidians, Miklucho-Maclay and his Fish-brains, 

 and you and your Arthropods, I am becoming schwindel- 

 suchtig, and spend my time mainly in that pious ejacula- 

 tion " Donner und Blitz," in which, as you know, I seek 

 relief. Then there is our Bastian who is making living 

 things by the following combination : 



& Ammoniae Carbonatis 

 Sodae Phosphatis 

 Aquae destillatae 



quantum sufficit 

 Caloris 150 Centigrade 

 Vacui perfectissimi 

 Patientiae. 



Transubstantiation will be nothing to this if it turns 

 out to be true, and you may go and tell your neighbour 

 Januarius to shut up his shop as the heretics mean to out- 

 bid him. 



Now I think that the best service I can render to all 

 you enterprising young men is to turn devil's advocate, 

 and do my best to pick holes in your work. 



By the way, Miklucho-Maclay l has been here ; I have 



1 Miklucho-Maclay, a Russian naturalist, and close friend of 

 Haeckel's, who later adventured himself alone among the cannibals 

 of New Guinea. 



VOL. II O 



