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SUMMARY OF CURRENT RESEARCHES RELATING TO 
Brownian Movement. — The President of the New York Micro- 
scopical Society informed * the members at a recent meeting that the 
specimen of gamboge rubbed up in water which he had prepared on 
Aug. 3rd, 1874, and which had until recently showed very active move- 
ments, seemed at last to have ceased its activity, a leak having developed 
in the inclosing cell, and evaporation having ensued in consequence. 
He thought the subject of interest, as fourteen years was probably the 
longest period during which the phenomenon had been under observation. 
We recently purchased a number of the ‘Philosophical Magazine 
and Annals of Philosojdiy ’ for 1828, which contained (pji. 161-73) the 
original article of Pohert Brown on the existence of active molecules in 
organic and inorganic bodies, and at the beginning of the article was 
inserted a MS. letter addressed to “ Eevd. Dr. Buckland, Christ Church, 
Oxford,” and signed “ J. H. C.,” which, we understand from a relative of 
the late Dr. Buckland, to he the initials of the Eev. John Henry 
Conyheare, Anglo-Saxon Professor at Oxford, brother of the Dean of 
Llandalf. 
Of Brown’s view's he writes as follows: — 
“ Touching Brown’s theory that all matter consists of live mites, I 
don’t believe a word on’t. I don’t wish to regard our own planet as 
rotten cheese any more than the moon as cream cheese. If you suspend 
particles of matter in a fluid for microscopical observation, a thousand 
circumstances, may generate motion, and to this I attribute his facts ; 
if, however, they should be confirmed, I know nothing inconsistent with 
the received philosophical notions as to the intimate corpuscular struc- 
ture of bodies in them. Biot, if I remember, in the optics of his Nat. 
Phil,, has some curious speculations on the subject. He states it to be 
possible that solid bodies may be comjiosed of systems of moving 
molecules, representing in small what the planetary systems do in large. 
I would only add one supjjosition more ; that these molecules are in- 
habited, and have philosophers among their population who, having 
observed the motions of some half-dozen molecules in their neighbour- 
hood and ascertained their laws, believe they have developed the system 
of the universe.” 
Method for Transmitting Microscopic Objects. t — Prof. G. O. Sars 
describes the following method for transmitting microscopic creatures 
from a distance : — 
On March 14 a quantity of mud was gathered from a freshwater lake 
in the northern part of Australia. This was dried and sent to Christiania, 
where it was received on the 29th of October, in masses so hard and 
stony that they were broken with difficulty. The weather was so cold 
that the experiments were not begun until the last of May, the mud and 
its contents having been in a dried condition for more than a year. It 
was finally placed in an aquarium consisting of a large cylindrical glass 
vessel, where a great number of the various orders of the Entomostraca 
were hatched out from the “ winter eggs ” dormant in the gathering, 
and in many cases studied through several generations. The method 
is a suggestive one, and in the hands of others may be followed with as 
successful results. 
* Journ. New York Micr. Sue., v. (1889) p. 46. 
t Fordhaucllinger i Videnskabs-Selskabet i Chrifctiauia, 1887. Cf. The Microscope, 
ix. (1889) p. 319. 
