THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 45 



The case of the tardigrades was similar in the famous 

 experiment. Like the persons we have spoken of, if they 

 issued living from their stove at 306 Fahr., it was because 

 its heat had never reached them, or it would infallibly have 

 burned them. 



Garments skilfully prepared preserve the conjurers from 

 the fatal heat, to which they only expose themselves in ap- 

 pearance ; in the case of the tardigrades the earth took the 

 place of the clothes. As the learned Ehrenberg said, with 

 great reason, sand and moss guarantee animalcules as com- 

 pletely against desiccation as a thick woollen mantle pro- 

 tects the Arab from the burning heat of the sun. 



This brief account will suffice to overthrow completely 

 the incombustibility of the tardigrades ; reason rejects and 

 experiment condemns it. 



But some have displayed even a greater fondness for res- 

 urrections, which would indeed be still more marvellous. 



This phenomenon was the great attraction of an entire 

 generation ; our fathers diverted themselves with it, and 

 learned men played on the credulity of their pupils by 

 means of it. Spallanzani and Bonnet refer to it in their 

 correspondence again and again : the former even headed 

 one of the chapters in his great work " Animals which can 

 be Killed and Resuscitated at Pleasure," a title which did 

 not fail to attract his readers, and stimulate their curiosity 

 to the highest pitch. 



white as snow. The head of the experimenter was protected by a thick helmet 

 furnished with glass eyes, and he seemed to carry in the folds of his dress an 

 apparatus for yielding fresh air, by means of which he breathed in the midst of 

 a combustion so intense that one entirely lost sight of him. 



