ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 109 



lodes cyclopum ? To have produced all these various animals, 

 there must have been means in force at a time long subse- 

 quent to that at which the production of life by miracle is 

 assumed to have taken place. And what is this but to con- 

 nect the ancient events, assumed to have come by miracle, 

 with the modern cases of doubted primitive generation ? Does 

 it not tend to show that the ancient and modern events are 

 of one character, both alike results of a silent immutable energy 

 imparted to nature by her Divine Author, and in the working 

 of which there is no regard to great or small ? 



Seeing such reasons for believing the general dictum of the 

 philosophical world on primitive generation to be inconclu- 

 sive, we may be prepared to review without surprise or incre- 

 dulity the well-known experiments of Mr. Crosse, which 

 seemed to result in the production of a small species of insect 

 in considerable numbers. This gentleman was pursuing 

 some experiments in crystallization, causing a powerful 

 voltaic battery to operate upon a saturated solution of sili- 

 cate of potash, when the insects unexpectedly made their ap- 

 pearance. He afterwards tried nitrate of copper, which is a 

 deadly poison, and from that fluid also did live insects 

 emerge. Discouraged by the reception of his experiments, 

 Mr. Crosse soon discontinued them; but they were some 

 years after pursued by Mr. Weekes, of Sandwich, with pre- 

 cisely the same results. This gentleman, besides trying the 

 first of the above substances, employed ferro-cyanate of potas- 

 sium, on account of its containing a larger proportion of 

 carbon, the principal element of organic bodies ; and from this 

 substance the insects were produced in increased numbers. 

 A few weeks sufficed for this experiment, with the powerful 

 battery of Mr. Crosse : but the first attempts of Mr. Weekes 

 required about eleven months, a ground of presumption in 

 itself that the electricity was chiefly concerned in the pheno- 

 menon. The changes undergone by the fluid operated upon, 

 were in both cases remarkable, and nearly alike. In Mr. 

 Weekes' s apparatus, the silicate of potash became first turbid, 

 then of a milky appearance ; round the negative wire of the 

 battery, dipped into the fluid, there gathered a quantity of 



