Auckland Institute. 401 
in Dr. Bastian's experiments and reasoning: he had shown that Bacteria, 
occasionally forming films, were produced in his solutions boiled in vacuum 
tubes ; and he then went on to show, with admirable clearness, the progress of 
'development of higher organisms from Bacterian and Leptothrix films when 
placed in ordinary conditions. But he does not, as far as the writer can see, 
anywhere maintain that the films formed by him as described, in vacuo, will 
produce penecilium, euglenz or paramecia, and ciliated infusoria, if only 
exposed to air which has been effectually deprived of germs ; whence it might 
be inferred that Dr. Bastian admits the necessity of germs for these. 
The paper quoted at length Professor Wyville Thomson’s remarks upon the 
very lowest form of life, Bathybius, spread in an almost unbroken sheet under 
the whole area of the ocean, and suggested that this vast development of 
protoplasm everywhere—in every stagnant ditch, or under 15,000 feet of ocean— 
may be but the first link between organized creatures and inorganic matter, 
necessary to the existence and development of life, and consisting of very 
compound and, therefore, mobile molecules, built up by physical forces, and, 
though subject to very great and rapid changes, being in a constant condition 
of variation and molecular motion, yet not itself alive. 
The paper went on to notice the great apparent difficulty, suggested by 
Dr. Bastian, in conceiving that these lower forms of life should have descended 
from a line of ancestry far more remote than any of the higher animals, and 
should still be as simple and rudimentary as at first ; facts which he considers 
quite opposed to the principles of the Uniformitarian and Evolutionary 
Philosophy. It was maintained that, while the conditions remained such as 
could only maintain the most rudimentary forms of life, development must 
remain an impossibility ; that when the conditions admitted of a higher form of 
life being maintained, there development had probably taken place. 
The paper wound up with a few short observations on the importance of 
this subject, not for scieutific purposes only, but as largely influencing the issues 
of health and disease, and a hope that the colonists of New Zealand would 
never so alienate themselves from the rest of the human family as to consider 
во vast a human interest foreign to them. 
An interesting discussion ensued, in which many members took part. 
Еопвтн Meere. 8th September, 1873. 
The Rev. A. G. Purchas, M.R.C.S.E., in the chair. 
The list of donations to the Library and Museum was read by the Secretary. 
1. “On Cosmography,” by J. Leith. 
