Geological Society, 71 



experiments were conducted. But he did find cases of fertilization 

 after prolonged exposure to the boiling temperature; and this 

 caused him to come to the conclusion that under certain rare con- 

 ditions spontaneous generation may occur. He also found that an 

 alkalized hay-infusion was so difficult to sterilize that it was ca- 

 pable of withstanding the boiling temperature for hours without 

 losing its power of generating life. The most careful experiments 

 have been made with this infusion. Dr. Roberts is certainly cor- 

 rect in assigning to it superior nutritive power. But in the present 

 inquiry five minutes' boiling sufficed to completely sterilize the 

 liquid. 



Summing up this portion of his inquiry, the author remarks 

 that he will hardly be charged with any desire to limit the power 

 and potency of matter in regard to life. But holding the notions 

 he does upon this point, it is all the more incumbent on him to 

 affirm that, as far as inquiry has hitherto penetrated, life . has 

 never been proved to appear independently of antecedent life. 



GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



[Continued from p. 563.] 



May 10, 1876.— Prof . P. Martin Duncan, M.B., F.R.S., President, 

 in the Chair. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. " On some Fossil Beef-building Corals from the Tertiary de- 

 posits of Tasmania." By Prof. P. Martin Duncan, M.B., F.R.S., 

 President. 



2. " On the Echinodermata of the Australian Cainozoic (Tertiary) 

 Deposits." By Prof. P. Martin Duncan, M.B., F.R.S., President. 



3. " On the Miocene Fossils of Haiti." By R. J. Lechmere Guppy, 

 Esq., F.L.S., F.G.S. 



May 24, 1876.— Prof. P. Martin Duncan, M.B., F.R.S., President, 

 in the Chair. 



The following communications were read :— 



1. "On the old glaciers of the northern slope of the Swiss Alps." 

 By Prof. Alphonse Favre, F.M.G.S. 



The author illustrated his remarks by a map on a scale of ^ttji) <nr> 

 showing the space occupied by the old Swiss glaciers at the time of 

 their greatest extension, and founded in part upon evidence obtained 

 since 1867, when he, in conjunction with Prof. Studer and M. L. 

 Soret, issued an " Appel aux Suisses " for the preservation of 

 erratic blocks. He said that in existing glaciers two parts may be 

 recognized — an upper one, the reservoir or feeding glacier, and a 

 lower one, the flowing glacier. Applying this division to the old 

 glaciers, it appears that in the glaciers of the Rhone and Rhine the 



