[ 367 1 



plants, in the Philofophical T ranfaBions for the year 

 1758, vol. 1. p. 652— -687. 



146. MuNDus Invisibilis. J, C. Roos, I'jS'J. 



The fubjedts of this thefis have been much agi- 

 tated of late years by the philofophical literati^ who 

 have been (killed in the ufe of microfcopes. It 

 turns principally on the difcoveries of the Baron 

 Munkbaufen, relating to the fmut of wheat and bar-, 

 ley, and to the duft of the Lycoperday or Puff-balls ; 

 Agarics^ and other Fungi ; which he has afTerted to 

 be no other than the ova of ammalcula : from 

 whence had arifen a doubt, whether muflirooms 

 fhould be ranked with vegetables or animals, 

 LiNNi^us adopted, though with great hefitation, 

 the Baron's opinion, as appears from his Syflema 

 Nat, p. 1326 ; but his fentiments on this fubjed, 

 after the experiments made by our late Mr. ElliSy 

 who, at his requeft, inftituted a courfe profefTedly 

 to determine this point, do not appear. The re- 

 fult of Mr. ElUs^s enquiry proved the negative, as 

 may be feen by his papers, publifhed in the Phil, 

 ^ranf, vol. lix. p. 138, and Gent, Magazine for 

 1773, p. 316. Much curious matter on this fub- s 

 Jed occurs in Mr. Roos^^ paper but we conclude 

 with an important fa6t, related from the Baron's 

 book, who recom.mends the feed wheat to be wafhed 

 in a lye made of lime and fea-falt ; by which prac 

 tice, for twenty years, he had fecured his crop from 

 fmut, although his neighbours around him had 

 fometimes loft a third part of theirs. In the lat- 

 ter 



