194 
The solution itself was much clouded, and its surface was 
covered by a thick gelatinous pellicle. 
On microscopical examination of the fluid it was found to 
contain a multitude of very active monads and bacteria. The 
thick gelatinous pellicle was also made up of an aggregation 
of these in the usual transparent mucoid material. In very 
many situations this uniform pellicle was undergoing a process 
of secondary organisation, such as I have already fully 
described as leading to the production of unicellular organisms, 
and such as was seen to a less extent in the last experiment. 
Experiment 8.—A flask containing a very strong infusion of 
turnip 7 vacuo, which had been hermetically sealed fifteen 
days previously, after the fluid had been boiled for 15 minutes, 
was opened on February 28, 1870. 
The solution itself was very cloudy, and there was on its sur- 
face a thick coriaceous sort of pellicle distinguished by closely 
set aggregations or islets of denser growth. 
On microscopical examination the fluid was found to contain 
a multitude of very active monads and bacteria. The bacteria 
were almost more active than any I had before seen, and there 
were many different kinds. Some exhibited rapid serpentine 
movements, accompanied by flexions of the two segments of 
which they were composed ; whilst the movements of others 
were rapidly progressive in straight or curved lines. 
The pellicle was made up mainly of simple Lepféothrix fila- 
ments (mostly without joints or evidences of segmentation) ; and 
the thicker islets were found to be produced by a more luxu- 
riant growth in these situations of densely interwoven filaments. 
The pellicle was found to be so tough and elastic that some 
of it could only be mounted as a microscopical specimen after it 
had been compressed for an hour or two, by placing a small 
weight on the covering glass. 
On the same day that this solution was hermetically sealed 
in vacuo, two other portions of the same infusion were treated 
in a different manner for the sake of comparison. One (A) was 
enclosed, and sealed, in a flask with ordinary air and without 
the infusion having been boiled ; another portion (B) was boiled 
for fifteen minutes, and when the solution was cool, so that the 
flask was filled with ordinary air as before, its neck was- her- 
metically closed by the blow-pipe flame. The third portion 
(C), as above mentioned, after it had been boiled for fifteen 
minutes was sealed up 7 vacuo. 
The changes which took place were as follows. Towards 
the close of the second day, solution A became cloudy, and 
twenty-four hours later that in B was in a similar condition. It 
was not till two days later that solution C became cloudy. 
Afterwards, till the fifteenth day, when they were all opened, 
solutions A and B underwent comparatively little change, only 
becoming rather more opaque, though no distinct pellicle was 
formed on either ; in solution C, however, the pellicle continued 
to grow thicker and more distinct throughout the whole period. 
When opened the reaction of all three was still found to be 
slightly acid. In other respects their characters were as follows: 
Odour. Nature of Contents. 
Somewhatsickly, ) : A multitude of monads and bacte- 
with smell of es Solution Aw» 4.52 of medium 35, tlicpass ei 
turnip. 
Small monad-like granules most 
B... ... jmumerous; bacteria scarce, and 
(movements not very active. 
Fragrant, like 
that of fresh turnip. ” 
whose movements were extremely 
active. An enormous quantity of 
Leptothrix filaments. 
The results of these comparative experiments are most in- 
teresting. The changes commenced first in the unboiled solution, 
as might haye been imagined; then, in the two boiled solutions. We 
find them commencing in the solution in contact with air before they 
did in that which was contained 77 vacwo—the reason of this being 
not quite so obvious. But the changes in A and B were only 
able to advance to a certain extent, because, apparently, the 
space above the fluid being already filled with air, these changes, 
necessitating the evolution of gases as residual products, were 
only able to go on so long as the increased tension occa- 
sioned did not reach such a stage as to stop these molecular re- 
arrangements altogether. As might have been expected, the 
changes which took place in A were different from those which 
occurred in B. Those of A seemed to have been more thorough, 
giving rise to a much larger quantity of bacteria, and the some- 
what sickly odour of this was also intermediate between the 
comparatively unchanged odour in A and the decidedly foetid 
f Monads and bacteria ofmany kinds, 
Decidedly foctid... ay Crate 
NATURE 
[Fuly 7, 1870 
odour of B, in which such an enormous development of organisms 
had taken place. Here, then, the advantages of the vacuum 
seem to be most clearly shown. 
After having read M. Pasteur’s account, concerning the 
growth and development of fungoid organisms which had been 
placed in saline solutions,* it occurred to me that it would be 
a subject of much interest to determine whether any evidence _ 
could be obtained tending to show that organisms might even be 
evolved de novo in certain saline solutions. This, in fact, seemed 
to be a problem of very great importance ; for, if otherwise suit- 
able, the employment of such saline solutions would be attended 
by certain advantages. In the first place it was likely that the 
saline materials in solution would be far less injured by the high 
temperature of 100°C. than organic substances. And since, in 
working with a vacuum, we are able to get rid of the air alto- 
gether as a possible ‘‘germ” containing medium, so, with the 
view of simplifying our experiments, it becomes desirable that 
everything in our power should be done to diminish the number 
of possible pre-existing germs in the solutions employed. But 
this end, also, seemed likely to be best carried out by the em- 
ployment of certain simple saline solutions. We should thus be 
able to get rid, as it were, of Buffon’s ‘‘ molecules organiques,” 
which he supposed to pervade all organic matter that had been 
fashioned in a Living organism—and also of those ordinary or- 
ganic molecules whose presence is supposed, even by M, Pouchet 
and other heterogenists,+ to be absolutely necessary in order 
that ‘spontaneous generation” may occur, We should thus, 
indeed, best emerge from the circlefof the organic, thus as far 
as possible elude the company of all those embarrassing mole- 
cules which the vitalist may choose gratuitously to endow with 
“vital” properties, and to regard as the chosen seat of a special 
‘*vital force,” uncorrelatable with the ordinary physical forces. 
We may thus be best brought face to face with the problem— 
Whether the pre-existence of organic matter, which has been elabo- 
rated in pre-existing organisms, is, at present, absolutely necessary 
for the de xovo origination of Living things; or whether, in fact, 
these may arise, more or less directly, by changes taking place 
in an aggregation of new formed molecules of an organic type, 
which have been themselves produced by the combination of some 
of the dissociated elements of the saline substances employed. 
Just as nitrate of ammonia, carbonate of ammonia, free carbonic 
acid, and water, with a fewsaline substances, constitute the 
materials which—under the influence of the modified physical 
forces operating in the Living plant—are convertible into similar 
living vegetable protoplasm, so the problem which now presented 
itself was, whether under the influence of purely physical forces— 
acting uponsolutions containing some such ingredients—re-arrange- 
ments might not be brought about amongst the elements of the 
substances dissolved and of the aqueous medium itself, resulting 
primarily in the formation of certain new complex molecules, 
which, secondarily, under the continued influence of similar 
physical forces}, are capable of permitting the occurrence of 
new modes of collocation resulting in the evolution of the 
minutest specks of Living Matter §. 
It resolved itself, in fact, into an inquiry whether Living things 
can now originate on the surface of our globe in that fashion 
after which alone (in accordance with the evolution hypothesis) 
they could have originated in those far remote geologic ages 
when Life first began to dawn upon the still heated surface of that 
rotating and revolving spheroid which now constitutes our 
planet. Before organic matter of the ordinary kind could exist 
organisms must have been present to produce it. Organisible 
compounds of a certain kind must, nevertheless, have preceded 
organisms. And just as chemists are now able to build up a 
great number of organic compounds in their laboratorics, so it 
seems quite possible that some such mobile compounds may 
have been evolved by the agency of natural forces alone acting 
on the heated surface of the earth, at a period anterior to the 
* Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 1862, p. 106 
+ Who at the same time that they are heterogenists, are firm believers in 
a special “‘ vital ” force. 
1 Those who wish to understand how incident physical forces are capable 
of bringing about such re-arrangement, should consult vol. i. chap. 2, 
of Mr. Herbert Spencer's ‘‘ Principles of Biology.” 
§ For the genesis of Life, we need only look after the origin of such a speck 
of Living Matter. This is all that would be required by the greater number 
of the most advanced physiologists of the day, Given a mere speck of living 
matter less than %qhpo” in diameter, and a Living thing may soon appear in 
the form of a Vidrio, a Toruda cell, or a Leftothrix filament. By all such 
biologists the “ vital”’ forces are held to be »o/ecudar forces, and such mole- 
cular forces are nought else than the resultant attributes of the particular 
