HEAT UPON LIVING MATTER. 143 
manner :—“ Can one,” he savs, “find any proof 
sufficient to banish, or, at all events, to diminish one’s 
natural repugnance to admit that the germs of ani- 
malcules of the lowest order have the power of 
resisting the action of boiling water? In reasoning 
from the germs or eggs of animals with which we are 
acquainted, would it be difficult for us to imagine 
animalcules having this peculiarity ? It is true that 
we are not acquainted with any eggs endowed with 
such properties. I have already considered this 
subject in the ninth chapter of my Dissertation. 
1 there show how several kinds of eggs of insects— 
not to speak of eggs of birds—perish under a heat 
less than that of boiling water. I have shown also 
that the seeds of plants are destroyed when they are 
exposed to the heat of boiling water, and that even 
those whose outer coat is of the hardest description 
are not thereby spared.” But he goes on to say, as 
he had only been able hitherto to make his observa- 
tions on a limited number of eggs and seeds, there 
was the chance that more extended observations 
might reveal some capable of resisting this generally 
destructive influence. He says he had never lost his 
hope—with regard to seeds more especially—since 
he had seen a statement by Duhamel to the effect 
that some grains of wheat had germinated after 
having been heated in a stove to a temperature above 
