354 COSMOS. 



As air and water are animated at different temperatures by 

 the presence of vital organisms, so likewise is the interior <i 

 the different portions of animal bodies. Animalcules haie 

 been found in the blood of the frog and the salmon ; according 

 to Nordmaim, the fluids in the eyes of fishes are often filled 

 with a worm that lives by suction (Diplostomum), whilst in the 

 gills of the bleak the same observer has discovered a remark- 

 able double animalcule (Diplozoon paradoxum), having a 

 cross-shaped form with two heads and two caudal extremities. 

 Although the existence of meteoric infusoria is more than 

 doubtful, it cannot 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 

 likewise be retained for a time in the strata of the air, after 

 having been passively borne up by currents of aqueous 

 vapour.* This circumstance merits serious attention in recon- 

 sidering the old discussion respecting spontaneous generation,^ 



* Ehrenberg, op. cit., s. xiv. pp. 122 and 493. This rapid multipli- 

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

 in wheat-eels, wheel-animals, and water-bears or tardigrade animalcules,) 

 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 experiments of 

 Doyere, in Mem. sur les Tardigrades et sur leur propriety de revenir 

 d la vie, 1842, pp. 119, 129, 131, 133. Compare also Ehrenberg, s. 492 

 -496, on the revival of animalcules that had been dried during a space 

 of many years. 



+ On the supposed " primitive transformation" of organised or unor- 

 ganised matter into plants and animals, see Ehrenberg, in Poggendorff 'a 

 Annalen der Physik, bd. xxiv. s. 1-48, and also his Infusionsthierchen, 

 3. 121, 525, and Job.. 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. Augustine, 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" (ge.nera.tio cequivoca, spontanea aut 

 primaria). " If," says he, " animals have not been brought to remote 

 islands by angels, or perhaps by inhabitants of continents addicted to the 

 chase, they must have been spontaneously produced upon the earth ; 

 although here the question certainly arises, to what purpose, then, were 

 animals of all kinds assembled in the Ark T " Si e terra exortse sunt 

 (bestise) secundum originem primam, qnando dixit Deus : Producat terra 

 animam vivam ! multo clarius apparet, non tarn reparandorum animalium 

 eausa, quam figurandarum variarum gentium (?) propter ecclesiae sacrar 



