FORAMINIFERA AND INFUSORIA. 
347 
Fuchs constantly observed, in healthy cow’s milk, two ditFerent hifu- 
soria, a very small Moncide, and a larger polygastric animalcule belong- 
ing to the bristle Monades (Gurlt und Hertwig, Magaz. f. die Thierheilk. 
184:1, p. 155). The blueness of the milk arises, according to his investi- 
gations, from the development and increase of an infusorian belonging to 
the genus Vibrio, which he calls Vihr. cyanogenus. He defines another, 
which causes milk to turn yellow, as Vihr. xanthogenus. The Vihriones 
die at a heat of 50-55° R. When frozen and again thawed, they con- 
tinue to live, and Fuchs saw them, when they had been dried for three 
weeks, again come alive on being moistened. 
According to the observations of Mitscherlich, a considerable deposit 
is, after some days, formed in the watery extract of expressed oil-seeds, 
of most of the green parts of vegetables, and of boiled animal substances, 
which might be supposed a product of decomposition of the substances 
dissolved in the fluid by means of the air, but which the microscope 
discovers to consist of living and dead Vihriones (Ber. fiber die Ver- 
handl. derKonigl. Akad. der Wissensch. zu Berlin, 1842, p. 265). These 
Vihriones are also very abundant in the intestinal canal of man as well 
as of beasts. Mitscherlich fed rabbits for a long while upon cabbage, 
artificially infected with Vihriones ; yet he found fungi only, the result 
of fermentation, in the intestinal canal of these animals. 
The highly interesting observations of Ehrenberg have determined 
the actual share of microscopic organisms in the blocking up of the 
harbours at Wismar and Pillau, as well as in the formation of the slime 
of the bed of the Elbe at Cuxhaven, and of the bottom of the Nile 
at Dongola, Nubia, and the Delta of Egypt (ibid. 1841, p. 127 and 201). 
He has also extended his observations to the distribution and influence 
of microscopic life in North and South America, and in Iceland. His 
experience enables him to distinguish the forms of microscopic animals 
in the small particles of earth hanging to plants in Herbaria, and to 
other bodies. He was able to show the Society of Naturalists at Berlin, 
living Infusoria sent from America, consisting chiefly of Bacillaria 
(Fror. N. Notiz. Bd. 23, p. 10). 
Bailey has given a view of the fossil and living Bacillaria in the 
United States (Sillim. Amer. Journ. vol. xlii. p. 88, and vol. xliii. p. 321). 
Ehrenberg has continued his observations on that great bed of Infu- 
soria, the Lfineburg Heath (Bericht. fiber die Verhandl. der Akad. der 
Wissensch. zu Berlin, 1842, p. 292). He has given some information 
on the fossil Infusoria of Ireland ; and drawn attention to a bed of them 
at Berlin (ibid. 1842, p. 321 and 336 ; 1841, p. 231 and 362), which seems 
to be the most extensive deposit yet known, and in which, it is remark- 
able, that Infusoria still living, and not yet discovered at the surface 
of the soil near Berlin, are present among the fossil. Gallionella de- 
cussata and granulata are particularly mentioned. 
391 
