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the British Association, at Oxford in 1859, Manchester in i860, 

 and Cambridge in 1861, this theory was the question of the 

 hour. Our Club was formed at the time when the arguments 

 pro and con. waxed fast and furious, and as year by year since 

 the matter has been investigated, the strong feelings on either 

 side have toned down ; deductions based upon insufficient pre- 

 mises have been abandoned, and investigators have settled 

 down to the even tenor of their ways. While we may hesi- 

 tate to give our adhesion to many of the propositions laid 

 down, we cannot deny the fact that the promulgation of this 

 theory has led to a vast increase in the spirit of inquiry, and 

 that the study of natural science received a greater impulse 

 than ever it received before. One of the directions in which 

 that spirit of inquiry was manifested was the theory of sponta- 

 neous generation. The researches of Tyndall have shown that 

 the air we breathe teems with micro-organisms, and that vege- 

 table infusions, if exposed to the air, will after a certain time 

 show such forms, derived from it ; but if their vitality is 

 destroyed by heat, and the air excluded, no living forms 

 appear ; or if the air is admitted, but passed through a tube 

 heated sufficiently to destroy the germs, no reproduction of 

 the organisms takes place ; and that life only comes from pre- 

 existing life. Tyndall's researches, conducted first in London, 

 were afterwards repeated in the higher Alps, and it was found 

 that the colder air of that region had the same effect upon the 

 non-development of these germs that its exclusion in London 

 had. In an interesting paper by Dr. Frankland, in the Nine- 

 teenth Century for August, 1887, some interesting particulars 

 are given regarding the widespread diffusion of these organisms 

 in the air. In a journey from Norwich to London, it was 

 found soon after leaving the former place that in a third-class 

 carriage with four passengers, one window being open, 395 

 organisms were falling on the square foot per minute, while 

 half-way between Cambridge and London the number was 

 3,120. In a barn where flail threshing was going on, Dr. 

 Frankland found the number to be 8,000. Confirming Tyn- 



