“Fuly 14, 1870] 
NATURE 
215 
plant, Buttonia natalensis, discovered by Mr. E. Button, and of 
a new date-palm, detected by Mr. M‘Ken, curator of the Natal 
Botanic Gardens. The colony may be congratulated on 
possessing so energetic a society. 
THE Portuguese Consul-General at Bangkok, a hale man and 
an excellent swimmer, while bathing in the River Menam, sud- 
denly sank from having come into collision with an electric eel, 
and was drowned. The Siamese say such deaths are not un- 
common. 
WE have received from Mr. M. J. Barrington-Ward a sylla- 
bus of a course of botanical lectures recently delivered at Clifton 
College,” accompanied by: the following gratifying remarks :— 
«*My lectures were attended, I should say, by 100 ladies, and I 
can well bear out what was said in NATURE a few weeks ago as 
to the ability which women display at such classes. I never met 
with so much diligence and real skill in pupils before, and I only 
wish I could send you some of the papers written by these ladies 
to show how welland logically they handled a scientific subject.” 
Mr. W. Crookes has reprinted for private circulation his 
article in the current number of the Quarterly Fournal of Science 
on ‘‘ Spiritualism viewed by the Light of Modern Science.” 
While admitting that phenomena have come under his notice 
which seem inexplicable on any known physical laws, the main 
part of Mr. Crookes’s paper is occupied by a statement of the 
tests to which “ Spiritualists” should subject their manifestations, 
which they have at present failed to do. 
“Der rationelle Wiesenbau, dessen Theorie und Praxis,” by 
L. Vincent, an exhaustive treatise on arable agriculture, has now 
reached its third enlarged edition, 
FACTS AND REASONINGS CONCERNING THE 
HETEROGENOUS EVOLUTION OF LIVING 
THINGS* 
IIT. 
THE results at which we have arrived now require to be looked 
at from two or three different points of view. 
In the first place, with regard to these latter experiments, in 
which, with the help of Dr. Frankland, a perfect vacuum was pro- 
cured in the experimental flasks previous to their being her- 
metically sealed, and before the exposure of them and their con- 
tained fluids to the temperature of 146 to 153°C. for four hours, it is 
desirable to know what the influence of such a temperature would 
be upon fungus-spores and filaments purposely exposed thereto. 
It is certain that, so far as all experimental observations have 
gone at present, no fungus-spore has been known to germi- 
nate after it has been exposed in a fluid to a temperature of 
100°C. for even a few seconds.+ What then would be the effect 
of a temperature of 150°C. for four hours? Is it possible that a 
fungus-spore or a fungus-filament at all similar to those which 
were met with in the preceding experiments could remain as 
such—could retain its morphological characters, in fact, after an 
exposure in fluid to a temperature of 150°C. for four hours? 
With the view of answering this question, I placed a quantity of 
a small fungus, consisting of mycelial filaments and multitudes 
of spores, closely resembling although not quite so delicate as 
those which were met with in the saline mixtures, into a solu- 
tion (of the same strength as that which had been previously em- 
ployed) of tartrate of ammonia and phosphate of soda in dis- 
tilled water, and then handed it over to Dr. Frankland with 
the request that he would kindly treat this in the same way as 
* (Concluded from p. 201.) 
+ Such a temperature, also, very frequently suffices to produce a con- 
siderable amount of disintegration in fungus filaments which are submitted 
to its influence, It is almost impossible that a perfect organism with a mass 
of loose spores around it could have braved such a temperature for fifteen 
minutes, and could then have presented an appearance such as is represented 
in Fig. 14, the original of which is still in my possession. If not the result 
of a new evolution, therefore, this fungus must haye been developed from a 
spore which was able to germinate aiter having been boiled for fifteen minutes ; 
and if so it would be an exception to a rule which has hitherto been found to 
be general. 
he had done the other four solutions. Accordingly, on May 11, 
a vacuum having been produced within the flask before it was 
hermetically sealed, the solution was submitted in the same di- 
gester to a temperature of 146° to 153°C. for four hours When 
taken out from the digester, the previously whitish mass of fungoid 
filaments and spores had assumed a decidedly brownish colour, 
and it was in great part converted into mere déris, On 
the following morning the flask was broken, and some of the 
remains of the fungus and its spores were examined micro- 
scopically. The plant was completely disorganised : not a single 
entire spore could be found ; they were all broken up into small 
more or less irregular particles, and the filaments were more 
or less empty, containing no definite contents, and being 
only represented by torn tubular fragments of various sizes. 
This utter disorganisation was in striking contrast with other 
specimens of the fungus, as it existed before exposure in the 
digester, which I had mounted in order to retain for purposes 
of comparison. And from the amount of destructive influence 
which was exercised upon the microscopic fungus in question, 
we may fairly imagine that the destructive influence of a 
similar temperature for four hours upon the still more delicate 
fungus represented in Fig. 17 would have been by no means 
less in extent. It would seem, at all events, well-nigh impossible 
that such a fungus could have pre-existed in the solution 
before its exposure in the digester, and could afterwards have 
retained all its morphological characters unimpaired, as they 
may be seen in the specimen now in my possession, from which 
the above-mentioned drawing was made. The plant must have 
been developed, therefore, within the flask itself subsequently to 
its exposure in the digester. What then could its origin have 
been? No fungus-spore has hitherto been known to germinate 
—no previously Living thing has been known to live—after the 
fluid containing it has been raised to a temperature of 100° C. 
for a few seconds. The fluid in Experiment 19 had however 
been raised to a temperature of 146° to 153° C. for four hours. 
We have even seen, in addition, that sucha temperature com- 
pletely disorganises certain closely allied fungus-spores, so that 
there is good reason for presuming that it would be similarly 
destructive to such spores as are represented in Fig. 17 if they 
had pre-existed in the solution. All that I have just said ap- 
plies equally to the fungus-spores found in Experiments 18 and 
20, and to the Ciliated Monad found in the turnip solution. 
For the present, therefore, all presumptions, based upon the 
best available scientific evidence, are strongly in favour of the 
de novo evolution of these organisms within their respective flasks. 
Whilst it seems, however, that the Living things which were 
found in these four experiments must have been evolved de 
novo, it does not follow necessarily that they were evolved in Experi- 
ments 19 and 20 out of the re-arranged elements of the saline 
substances themselves, because no proof has been offered that 
these substances were chemically pure. That such may have 
been the origin of these Living things seems, however, to be 
possible from what I have already said, and will, I think, appear 
even probable, after a due consideration of some of the facts 
which are now about to be related. 
“‘Germs”’ are supposed by many to beuniversally diffused, more 
especially in the air and within organic substances. It seemed 
possible, however, and only reasonable, to suppose that they 
might exist much less abundantly in saline materials than within 
organic substances, and this was one reason why such materials 
were made use of in my later experiments. In order to ascer- 
taim whether any visible organisms or spores were to be found in 
the saline materials employed, portions of these have been re- 
peatedly dissolved by distilled water in a watch-glass, and the 
fluid has afterwards been submitted to the most careful micro- 
scopical examination. Moreover, after sufficient time has been 
allowed for subsidence, the bottom of the watch-glass has then 
been most carefully scrutinised by a powerful immersion lens. 
The saline materials employed in the preceding experiments 
have been potash-and-ammonia-alum, tartar emetic, phosphate 
of soda, phosphate of ammonia, oxalate of ammonia, acetate of 
ammonia, carbonate of ammonia, and tartrate of ammonia. The 
result of repeated examinations of these substances in the man 
ner above stated, has been that not a trace of anything like an 
organism—no fungus-spore, germ, or egg of any kind—has 
been found in solutions of any of the substances employed, ex- 
cept in one. This one in which such bodies have been found is 
that which I have named last—the neutral tartrate of ammonia. 
Several of thesesalts—the oxalate, the acetate, the carbonate, and 
the tartrate of ammonia—contain within themselves all the ele- 
