we have seen, and we hope it will have many readers both among 
industrial employers and employ¢es. 4 
Two attempts have recently been made from Norway to reach 
Spitzbergen in the middle of winter, for the purpose of taking 
‘additional supplies to the storehouse at Eisfiord, erected and 
"fitted with all necessaries last summer, as we noted some months 
‘ago, for the purpose of sheltering the exploring expeditions 
which are endeavouring to penetrate polewards to the norch of 
Europe. The steamer Albert left Tromsoe on November 20, 
and reached about 77° under the meridian of Greenwich, when, 
‘on account of the great danger from the ice, not to mention the 
“unbroken twilight, and the improbability of reaching the goal, 
it wasdetermined to putback. One result of the voyage is the 
observation that the temperature of the sea at that season is 
several degrees higher than that of the air. In spite of the 
failure of the A/bert, the sailing-vessel /sdjiirn left Tromsoe on 
December 24, with the same object in view, and came within 
‘sight of Bear Island on January 7, which, however, it was found 
impossible to reach. After one or two attempts in other direc- 
“tions, the Z:djan was compelled to put about, more from the 
difficulty of managing the frozen sails than from the danger from 
“ice and the inconvenience of perpetual darkness. Notwith- 
standing these two failures, we learn from Les Mondes that M. 
Rosenthal, of Bremen, has fitted out his steamer Groénland for 
another attempt. M. Rosenthal has already lent his vessels to 
the service of science, and we hope this third attempt may be more 
successful than the previous ones, though it seems hopeless. 
AN advanced sheet sent us of Petermann’s Mittheilungen con- 
tains an article on King Karl Land, the island which lies to the 
east of Spitzbergen. English geographers identify this island 
with Wiche Land discovered by the Englishman Edge, in 1617, 
while Prof. Mohn, the writer of the article referred to, claims it 
for the Norwegian discoveries of 1872, and names it King Karl 
Land, after King Karl XV., of Norway and Sweden. Dr. Peter- 
mawvn maintains that Wiche Land has no existence, as the posi- 
tion given to it until recently in the maps was considerably south 
of King Karl Land, where there is nothing but water. Dr. 
Petermann in a note to us suggests that if the English Admiralty 
or any private English expedition should explore and survey it 
" thoroughly, there might be no objection to naming it afresh. 
_ The naming of any geographical discovery is not of very great 
importance, but it seems to us that the discovery of the island 
really belongs to Edge ; all that can be said against it is that 
- either he or subsequent geographers misplaced the island by a 
few degrees. On the same ground the credit of many early dis- 
 coveries might be taken away from those to whom it is justly 
_ attributed. 
Ir is said that an American aéronaut, Prof. Donaldson, in- 
ends this summer to cross the Atlantic to Ireland in a large 
‘balloon. The machine will weigh about 2,000 Ib, will contain 
268,000 ft. of gas, with two reservoirs to provide against leakage, 
and an electrical arrangement for light. The professor calculates 
to accomplish his trip in from 17 hours to two days and a half, 
and intends, if the experiment proves successful, to establish a 
palloon mail and passenger line round the world, 
THE additions to the Zoological Society’s Gardens during the 
past week included a short-toed eagle (Circaétus brachydactylus), 
and two Algerian tortoises ( 7éstado mauritanica), from Morocco, 
presented by Capt. Perry ; a white-faced tree-duck, (Dendrocygna 
_ viduata), and a Capoeira partridge (Odontophorus dentatus), from 
Brazil, and a crocodile from Sumatra, deposited ; a Great 
kangaroo (Macropus giganteus), and a vulpine phalanger (Pia- 
 langista vulpina), born in the gardens ; three red-breasted 
cardinals (Paroaria culculata) from South America, and a 
‘western ground parrakeet (Geopsitéacus occidentalis) from South 
~ Australia, purchased. Only one specimen of the last mentioned 
extremely rare bird has been previously alive in the gardens. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES . 
LONDON 
Royal Society, March 20.—‘‘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.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 Abbé Spallanzani and our no less distinguished 
countryman Turberville Needham. Writing concerning his 
own relation to Needham, the Abbé 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 repu- 
diating much of the empty and idle criticism in which so many 
of Needham’s contemporaries indulged with regard to his work. 
This criticism Spallanzani says :—‘‘ Without looking into de- 
tails, contented itself by throwing doubt upon some of the facts, 
and by explaining after its own fashion others whose possibility 
it was willing to admit.” He moreover warmly reprobated the 
ignorant and disrespectful statements made by an anonymous 
writer who had shown himself little worthy of being heard upon 
the subjects in dispute. Spallanzani on this occasion very wisely 
said { :—‘‘ When it is a question concerning observations and 
experiments, it is necessary to have repeated them with much 
circumspection before venturing to pronounce that they are 
doubtful or untrustworthy. He who will allow himself to 
speak of them with contempt, and who can only attempt to 
refute them with writings composed by the glimmer derived 
from a treacherous lamp, will not find himself in a condition 
to retain the esteem of learned men.” The anonymous writer 
(in his ‘LettresA un Americain”), to whom Spallanzani referred, 
had gone so far as to doubt the statements of Needham as to the 
constant appearance of organisms in infusions which had been 
previously boiled, and also intimated that even if they were to 
be found, it was only because they had been enabled to resist 
the destructive influence of the boiling fluid. This latter asser- 
tion was emphatically denicd by Spallanzani—his denial being 
based upon a most extensive series of experiments with eggs in 
great variety and with seeds of all degrees of hardness. These 
were all found to be killed by a very short contact with boiling 
water. Srallanzani had thoroughly satisfied himself that even 
very thick-coated seeds could not resist this destructive agent, 
whilst he thought that the idea entertained by some, of the eggs 
of the lowest infusoria being protected from the injurious in- 
fluence of the boiling water by reason of their extreme minute- 
ness, was a supposition so improbable as scarcely to deserve 
serious consideration. Such a notion was, he thought, wholly 
opposed to what was known concerning the transmission of heat. 
Whilst, therefore, the opinion of those who believe that eggs 
have the power of resisting the destructive influence of boiling 
water could be wholly refuted, Spallanzani thought it by no 
means followed that the infusoria, which always after a very 
short time appeared in boiling infusions, had arisen independ- 
ently of the existence of eggs. The infusions being freely ex- 
posed to the air, it was very possible that this air had intro- 
duced eggs into the fluids, which by their development had given 
birth to the infusoria. § 
After the lapse of a century it has at last been clearly shown 
that this supposition of aérial contamination advanced by Spal- 
lanzani (warrantable and natural as it was at the time) is one 
which, in the great majority of cases, is devoid of all founda- 
tion in fact, so far as concerns the organisms essentially associated 
with processes of putrefaction, viz., Bacteria and Vibriones. 
The means of proving this statement, based upon independent 
observations made by Prof. Burdon Sanderson and myself, were 
recently submitted to ‘the consideration of the Royal Society. | 
Before the reading of this communication I was under the im- 
Découvertes Microscopiques et la 
* * “Nouvelles Recherches sur les 
i London and Paris, 1769, vol. i. p- 69- 
Génération des Corps Organisés, &c. 
+ Loc. cit. p. 9. 
t Loc. cit. p. 114. anit 
§ A few pages further on this view is thus shortly expressed. :—“* Il est 
évident que toutes les tentatives faites avec le feu, peuvent bien servir a 
prouver que les animaux microscopiques ne naissent point des ceufs que l’on 
supposit exister dans les infusions avant qu’on leur fit sentir le feu: mais 
cela n’empéche, pas qu’ils n’aient pti étre formes de ceux qui auront été 
portes dans les vases aprés Vébullition.” 
|| See Proceedings of Royal Society, No. 141, 1873) Ps 1296 
