132 



REPORT — 1870. 



proceeded to deal with tlie facts of succession, describing the various known groups, 

 and glancing at the times of origin and succession of the placental mammals, say- 

 ing the first thing that the record suggested was the rapidity with which the most 

 divergent groups made their appearance. Of course there was no real basis for an 

 assumption of coeval creation. It might be held, on zoological groimds, that we 

 ought not to separate men and monkeys, but retain them as one under the 

 ordinal title of Primates. He adopted the division of the placental series of 

 Mammalia into twelve groups, not from any rigid belief as to their separate 

 equivalencies, but because they were sufficiently distinctive for practical purposes, 

 and form on the whole perhaps the fairest expression of grouping which our 

 science could at present afford. After dwelling at great length upon the suc- 

 cession of the various groups, he stated that as regarded the highest of all, the 

 placental division, lie would only say that, as he understood the doctrine, the 

 strictest demand of the development theory did not require, as was commonly sup- 

 posed, a lineal descent as between Bimana and Quadrumana ; but it was certainly 

 held that either of these groups, as we now know them, might have been sepa- 

 rately evolved from more generalized primatal types, the intermediary terms being 

 possibly connected by a long antecedent and far more generalized common proge- 

 nitor. In that connexion the most advanced evolutionist must own that the as- 

 sumedly missing tertiary primatals constituted a great and natural bar to the 

 popular acceptance of the theory of descent by natural selection. On the other 

 hand, a multitude of considerations seemed to him to outweigh all the data thrown 

 into the anti-continuity side of the balance. 



On the Development of Germ-life. By Dr. P. Ceace-Calyekt, F.R.S., F.C.S, 



The author has been engaged during the last twelve months in a series of re- 

 searches with the view of determining if the germs of fermentation and putre- 

 faction can be carried any distance from their source of production by a current of 

 atmospheric air, and communicate their decomposing action to a fluid suscep- 

 tible of undergoing a similar change. To answer this question, he has made many 

 experiments, but will now only give the following details. 



The first question was, what apparatus should be employed to deprive atmo- 

 spheric air of the germs it contains. 



He passed slowly (during four hours) a gallon of air first through a tube 2 feet 

 in length, filled with cotton-wool, and then through another tube, 6 inches long, 

 filled with small fragments of pumice-stone heated to redness. 



Secondly, air was passed through the same length of cotton-wool, and then 

 through 18 inches of red-hot pumice-stone. The two bulks of air thus purified 

 were made to bubble slowly into pure water, deprived of animal or vegetable 

 life, A drop of each of the fluids was examined under a microscope of 800 

 diameters, and the following results were obtained : — 



After 1 lioiir 



„ 20 hours I 



1) 3G „ 



„ 14 days 



11 -1"^ )i 



Water through which air 



of No. 1 experiment had 



been passed. 



Water through which air 



of No. 2 experiment 



had passed. 



N« life. 

 Two or three microzymes 

 were present in each drop. 

 Considerable auiount of 



microzymes and vibrios. 

 An increased quantity of 



life 



Same. 



No life. 

 No life. 



No life. 



No life. 



' One or two microzymes 

 [ observed in each drop 



Having thus found the method of depriving atmospheric air of its life, he em- 

 ployed the same purified air to ascertain if he could, as stated above, convey by 



