PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 109 



Logarithms to four places will usually give all the accuracy 

 which observations with the sea horizon admit of. 



Mr. J. W. Powell commenced a communication on 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE NOETH AMERICAN INDIANS, 



118th Meeting. ' February 10, 1811. 



The President in the Chair. 



Forty-seven members and visitors present. 



The President announced the death of Rear Admiral Theodo- 

 Rus Bailey, U. S. Navy, a member of the Society. 



Mr. J. S. Billings made a communication on 



bacteria and spontaneous generation. 



(abstract.) 



Several years ago I called the attention of the Society to this 

 subject, and showed the results of a number of experiments, made 

 to test the accuracy of the results reported by Dr. Bastian. His 

 statements were not confirmed — but the experiments could not be 

 considered satisfactory on account of the difficulty of preserving 

 fermentable and putrescible fluids when free access of air is allowed. 



This difficulty has been overcome, and the subject of the life 

 history of microzymes including bacteria, is now attracting much 

 attention, especially in relation to the causation of disease. I 

 have recently had the opportunity of examining the results of a 

 number of experiments made by Prof. Joseph Lister, of Edin- 

 burgh, a full account of which has not yet been published, and 

 propose to call the attention of the Society to these and to the 

 apparatus which he uses. Mr. Lister was a believer in the 

 teachings of Pasteur, that all fermentations and putrefactions 

 are due to the presence of living organisms, and on this he based 

 his method of excluding these organisms from wounds in order 

 to prevent putrefaction. (His apparatus was shown.) 



But in 1871 a paper was published by Dr. Burden Sander- 

 son which seemed to prove that drying bacteria killed them, and 

 that therefore the dust of the air contained none of them living. 

 As this would have affected Mr. Lister's process very much, he 

 undertook a new series of experiments. (Apparatus shown and 



