Ill 
Ordinary Meeting, March 8th, 1870. 
J. P» Joule, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., &c., President, in the 
Chair. 
Sir James Cockle, M.A., F.R.S., President of the Queens- 
land Philosophical Society, was elected a Corresponding 
Member of the Society. 
The following letter from Mr. Dancer, F.R.A.S., dated 
March 5, 1870, was read : — - 
I was not present at the last ordinary meeting on Feby. 
22nd, but seeing my name mentioned in the printed report 
of Dr. A. Ransome’s paper “On the Organic Matter of 
Human Breath,” in which it is stated “ that Mr. Dancer’s 
calculation of the number of spores in the air was noticed, 
but a source of error was pointed out in the readiness with 
which organisms are developed in suitable fluids even in 
the course of a few hours,” in reply I have to state that this 
very obvious source of multiplication did not escape atten- 
tion, which a few extracts from the printed paper in the 
Proceedings of March 31st, 1868, will suffice to show. It is 
stated that “ during the first observations, few living organ- 
isms were noticed, but as it afterwards proved, the germs of 
plant and animal life (probably in a dormant condition) 
were present.” Again, at the bottom of the same page- — 
“ When the bottle had remained for 36 hours in a room at 
a temperature of 60° the quantity of fungi had visibly 
increased, and the delicate mycelial thread-like roots had 
Proceedings— Lit. & Phil. Society. — Yol. IX. — No. 12. — Session 1869-70. 
