C *3® ] 
XVIIL Obfer-vations on a particular Man- 
ner of Increafe in the Animalcula of ve- 
getable Infufions^ with the Difcovery of 
an indiffoluble Salt arifing from Hemp- 
feed ptit into W ater till it becomes putrid. 
By John Ellis, Efq\ F. R, S, 
Read May 28, TJ" A V I N G, at the rcqucll of Dr. 
1769. Linnaeus, made feveral experiments 
on the infulion of mufhrooms in water, in order to 
prove the theory of Baron Munchhaufen, that their 
feeds are firfl; animals and then plants j which he 
takes notice of in his Syftem of Nature, p. 1326, 
under the genus of Chaos, by the name of Chaos 
7 " ngorum feminiim : it appeared evidently that the 
feeds were put into motion by very minute animal- 
cula which proceeded from the putrefaction of the 
mufliroom ; for by pecking at thefe feeds, which are 
reddilh, light, round bodies, they moved them about 
with great agility in a variety of directions, while the 
little animals themfelves were fcarcely vifible, till the 
food they had eaten had difcovered them. The fa- 
tisfaCtion I received from clearing up this point led 
me into many other curious and interefting experi- 
ments. I looked carefully over Mr. Turbervili 
Needham’s, F. R. S. very ingenious memoir on this 
fubjeCt, vol. XLV. p 615, of the Philofophical 
1 ranfaCtions ; 
