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been ascribed to them, which are directly contrary to all philosophic views of life, and the origin of organised beings, the whole of which, excepting two, have continued to be maintained up to the most recent date, and partly form the basis of profound philosophical systems, which pervade all modern physiology and science.

During a long series of years, the author has devoted himself to the investigation of these extraordinary natural phenomena, so vast and comprehensive in their totality, so veiled in obscurity by their individual minuteness, to sepa rate fable from reality, and to place the reality in a systematic, intelligible point of view. In the years 1830, 1831, 1833, and 1835, he communicated several of the results of his observations to the Academy of Sciences at Berlin. He now presents to the scientific world in general the details, which have been since carefully re-examined, without any change in the main points during the last eight years, but very considerably enlarged; as the whole begins to exceed the powers of an individual.

The author then gives the history of our knowledge of the Infusoria, states their most remarkable properties, and concludes with instructions for collecting, observing, and preserving them. We see that, till the time of Leuwenhoek, that is, till about one hundred and sixty-three years ago, the very existence of Infusoria was absolutely unknown, or, at least, unproved, though partly suspected: whence it appears that it was the art of making powerful microscopes alone which enabled close observers of Nature to unveil such a world of her diminutive creation; as it was the art of making good telescopes which first opened to their view the boundless variety and all the wonders of the starry firmament. The author then enuinerates all the writers who have especially contributed to our knowledge of the Infusoria, among whom we might, perhaps, have expected to find the experiments and observations of Gleichen von Russwarm more especially mentioned, because the process which Ehrenberg has so frequently employed to render visible the little cavities which occur in the bodies of many Infusoria, and which he declares to be stomachs, was employed by Gleichen. It was to colour the water which contained Infusoria with carmine, by which those small cavities were filled with the tinged water, and became apparent. Baron von Gleichen has described this process in a work which bears the title of "Microscopic Discoveries in Plants, Insects," &c. Nuremberg, 1789, page 48, plate 22. This account concludes with a narrative of the discovery gradually made, but first of all originating with Fischer in Carlsbad, of such prodigious masses of Infusoria, observations so unexpected, that ten years earlier, and previously to so many other investigations and discoveries, they would probably have been considered as fables.

We shall dwell rather more at length on the thirty heads under which the author has comprehended the most remarkable properties of the Infusoria. We shall do this on the one hand, because we find here what must be particularly interesting for others besides professed naturalists, since the work gives a view of the peculiar organization of these animals, and, on the other hand,

because the most disputable points are here touched upon, which will give us an opportunity to propose to the author a modest doubt, a question, or a contradiction.

The very first position "are Infusoria organized, and probably, for the, greater part, highly organized animals," would afford the best field for ample discussion, for if it is certain that the vegetable kingdom must be opposed to the animal kingdom, as essentially different; if experience shows that a great number of the forms, reckoned among the Infusoria, for instance, the Galionella, Desmidea, Mikrasteria, Evastera, Fragilaria, &c., have been alternately placed first in one kingdom, and then in the other, and that others, such as Volvox, shew, even in their most simple forms, the most equal approximation to vegetable and natural organization, "it seems to follow," says Dr. Carus, many of whose learned critical observations on the work before us we have adopted, "that we are entitled to suppose between plants and animals an original organic kingdom-a kingdom, such as we have attempted to represent as the kingdom of the Protorganisms, nay, that this is the only way in which we can succeed in laying down a truly genetic series of these singular organizations, beginning with the most simple, and losing itself in one direction in the vegetable, and in the other in the animal kingdom."

Dr. Ehrenberg is of a precisely contrary opinion; he would have all the microscopical forms described as a species of Algæ, by Agardh and Lyngby, to be considered as animals, and appears to be convinced that we need only more powerful microscopes to be able to shew, in each of the principal little points of a Volvox, in every Evasterum or Desmideum, a complete nervous and vascular system, organs of digestion, respiration, and generation. We, as we have said, cannot help being of a different opinion, and should think Nature in contradiction with herself, if the most simple forms did not occur together with the most complex. When an hypothesis has led to such admirable discoveries, to such ingenious investigations, and to such fine descriptions and delineations of them, as those of our author, we are unwilling to contend about such different views, but heartily congratulate him on the extraordinary results of his labours.

The following propositions are intended to represent the blending of Infusoria with other classes of animals as impracticable; to prove their division into two classes, as well as the existence of Infusoria in the four quarters of the world, and in the sea; to show that vast bodies of water are decidedly tinged by Infusoria, which are, for the most part, invisible; and, lastly, that they are the chief cause of the phosphorescence of the sea. Propositions 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, are founded on the recent investigations into the accumulation of immense masses of fossil Infusoria, forming mould and various species of rock. No. 10 treats of the VOL. I.—NO. III.—JULY, 1839.

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prodigious multiplication of Infusoria, which may possibly take place in a very short time, from which it appears that a Vorticella or Bacillaria, which usually divides itself once in every hour, might, in two days, form eight millions, and, in four days, one hundred and forty billions, whence it would follow that, in the polishing slate of Billin, about forty one millions of such Infusoria form a cubic inch of stone; and that such an individual, by this prodigious, constantly progressing division, would be able to produce, in four days, two cubic feet of stone, supposing that about seventy billions formed one cubic foot.

On this head, the author says, No. 14: "We can make glass out of invisible Infusoria, with lime or soda; can manufacture floating bricks out of them, use them as flints, probably make iron out of them, polish silver with them, as tripoli, as ochre; manure with them, as mud or mould, and, with mountain flour composed of them, allay the cravings of hunger." To this, we will add No. 25, as follows: - Linneus said "all lime comes from worms (omnis calx e vermibus). Now, we are led to think, whether all flint, and all iron, consequently, the three principal component parts of the earth come, from worms: omnis silex omne ferrum e vermibus, cannot at present, with propriety, be affirmed or denied, and must remain for more special investigations to decide." We observe, however, when we remember the formation of lime-stone mountains out of coral and molluscæ, when we have observed beds of flinty shells of Infusoria, twenty-eight feet thick, and when the existence of so many masses of flinty rock, composed of Infusoria, admits of no doubt, it is impossible to deny an actual augmentation of the mass of the earth, by the remains of organic bodies formed upon it, and that these considerations are peculiarly fit to place in a clear light how, by individual organic life, not only matter is continually prepared, but also new matter produced -a result which, however important, has not yet been adopted in chemistry.

The most remarkable of the remaining propositions are, that no reasons can yet be adduced to assume a co-operation of Infusoria in contagious miasmata; that Infusoria are sleepless. Yet, as the author observes immediately afterwards, that immense quantities of Infusoria, in the form of mould, may be long capable of reanimation, though they be motionless, as it might be proved that wheel-animals, after having remained for years together in a perfectly dry state, may be so preserved that, on the application of moisture, they revive and swim about, we do not know how to designate such a state, unless as a kind of sleep. Dr. Ehrenberg also infers further, that Infusoria may be expected in the air, where nobody, however, has yet found them. One of the most remarkable points, and which, above all others, has been a cause of controversy, is the 26th, in which the author says: direct observations hitherto made on primitive generation are all wanting, as it appears to me, in the requisite precision."

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The author divides the Infusoria into two classes: 1. Polygastrica; 2. Rotatoria. The first class consists of twenty-two families; the second of eight families; so that, as far as the discoveries hitherto made extend, the whole of these animals may be comprised in thirty families. With respect to the second class, the anatomical discoveries of the author are extremely remarkable, and the least susceptible of being contradicted, though many doubts will certainly occur.

The class of Polygastrica gives room for far more doubts, contradictions, and diversity of opinions, and we have already expressed our belief that many of the Infusoria of this class ought not to be reckoned as animals, properly so called, but that they ought to be placed in the original intermediate kingdom, which begins with Protococcus and Volvox, and in which the transitions may be most evidently traced, on the one hand, to plants, on the other, to animals. But, if we abide for the present by the author's classification, we must again remark on the extraordinary importance of the many Infusoria of this class, even in the progressive formation of our planet. Since Kützing has made the very interesting discovery, that the little shells of so many animals of this class consist of silex, a prodigious, constantly progressive production of siliceous earth in our globe by these invisible animals is indisputable; and if we were previously enabled to convince ourselves that immense chains of lime-stone rock must be considered as entirely produced by corals and mollusca, the way was opened to the discovery of the above mentioned fact, that equally great masses of silicious strata and silicious rocks owe their existence solely to these Infusoria.

On the whole, one hundred and thirty-three genera of the polygastric Infusoria are described by the author; and as each genus, with all its species, is not only characterised, as far as their simple organisation admits, by an exact description, but, likewise, most carefully delineated, and sufficiently magnified, as well in this class as the fifty-five genera in that of the Rotatoria, the work must always remain a text-book for this branch of natural history, and prove highly valuable, whatever modifications or new opinions may arise in process of time from further discoveries.

It is beside our purpose to enter into any detail of the several genera or species, but we must mention the interesting contributions, at the close of the work, to the Physiology of the Infusoria, treating of the origin of the Infusoria in various infusions; of their state in the cold, and in the ice; of the influence of heat and light upon them; of the effects of electricity, magnetism, galvanism, of a vacuum of atmospheric air and artificial gases; and, lastly, of poisons and medicines, upon them. On the whole, the author has here rather collected the observations of preceding naturalists, but what he has added of his own is highly interesting, and deserving of our thanks.

We must not forget to state that the work is assisted by an admirably arranged, very complete, and convenient index, of fourteen folio pages each, in three columns.

INFLUENCE OF RELIGION ON THE ARTS.

Du Vandalisme et du Catholicisme dans l'Art. (Of Vandalism and Catholicism in Art.) By the Count de Montalembert, Pecr of France. 8vo. Paris, 1839.

The author of this work, the title of which is prefixed to our article, is at once one of the most enlightened promoters of civil and religious liberty, and one of the most rational and liberal defenders of all that was good in ancient times, whether in politics or in religion. During the late discussion of the Belgian question, which at one time appeared to threaten a conflagration in western Europe, the Count de Montalembert spoke, with a courage that surprised his timid colleagues in the Chamber of Peers, in behalf of the Belgian cause, which the perfidious policy of the most corrupt cabinet that has long disgraced the government of France, - that of Count Molé,- was secretly giving over to the Dutch and to the northern powers of Europe. So much were the Belgians delighted with this disinterested manifestation of sympathy in their behalf, that they subsequently voted a complimentary address to the young peer, and sent a special commission to Paris to present it. He went to Brussels, and was received there in triumph; but he knew not that he was labouring for a people not worthy of his efforts, and who, after blustering and swaggering, loud as Eolus himself, sneaked off, with fallen crests and lowered tails, the moment that an appearance of bona fide war presented itself. The same chivalrous enthusiasm which prompted Count de Montalembert on this occasion has always stimulated him to defend the cause of Catholicism, so much traduced in France during the Revolution, and in an especial manner to make himself a champion of Christian and Catholic art, as one of the most ennobling distinctions of any nation that dates from the fall of the Roman Empire. His ample knowledge of such subjects, his well known research in Christian and Medieval antiquities of all kinds, and the generous patronage which he bestows on all who cultivate analogous tastes, are well known in Paris, and have won for him there a just meed of celebrity; from such a person, therefore, a work on Christian art, viewed from a particular point, cannot but have its value, and the one we are about to take notice of is useful, not only to the French archæological student, but also to all of other nations, where causes and effects similar to those animadverted upon in its pages may exist. We have great pleasure in recommending it warmly to our readers.

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