454 Royal Society : — 



the use of tlie Aptyclms to tlie Ammonite ; but this is not to be 

 settled by the wild theories of persons who are evidently de- 

 ficient in elementary knowledge of the structure and economy 

 of living Mollusca. This is one of the evils of the palaeon- 

 tologists (as they call themselves) considering palaeontology 

 a separate science, and confining their study to fossil bones, 

 shells, &c., and not paying sufficient attention to the study 

 of recent animals, instead of studying them as parts of the 

 same subject, the former only to be explained by the latter — 

 as Cuvier demonstrated in his ' Ossemens Fossiles,' by a 

 careful study of the existing animals and their parts before he 

 attempted to determine the fossils he then knew : instead of 

 this we find the palfeontologists describing and forming 

 genera on mere fragments, and putting forth the wildest and 

 most erroneous theories. If the recent and fossil species were 

 studied together by the same person all this would be got rid 

 of ; and we cannot expect that any reliable information as to 

 the determination, structure, or distribution of fossils will be 

 obtained until this course is adopted. One can have no con- 

 fidence in pala3ontologists who describe numerous species and 

 genera from fragments, when they fail in describing or deter- 

 mining the osteology or conchology of recent species. 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



ROYAL SOCIETY. 

 March 20, 1873. — Mr. George Busk, Vice-President, in the Chair. 



"On the Temperature at which Bacteria, Vibriones, and their 

 Supposed Germs are killed when immersed in Fluids or exposed to 

 Heat in a moist state." By H. Charlton Bastian, M.A., M.D., F.R.S., 

 Professor of Pathological Anatomy in University College, London. 



For more reasons than one we may, perhaps, now look back 

 with advantage upon the friendly controversy carried on rather 

 more than a century ago between the learned and generous Abbe 

 Spallanzani and our no less distinguished countryman Turberv-ille 

 Needham. Writing conceming his own relation to Needham, 

 the Abbe said*, " I wish to deserve his esteem whilst combating 

 his opinion;" and, in accordance with this sentiment, we find 

 him treating his adversary's views with great respect, and at the 

 same time repudiating much of the empty and idle criticism in 

 which so many of Needham's contemporaries nididged with regard 



* Nouvelles Eecherches sur les Decouvertes Microscopiques et la Genera- 

 tion des Corps Organises, &c. London and Paris, 1709, vol. i. p. (>9. 



