Abstract
THE Monthly Microscopical Journal, No. 35, November 1871. “On the Form and Use of the Facial Arches,” by W. Parker, F.R.S., is chiefly occupied by observations on embryo salmon. “Another Hint on Selecting and Mounting Diatoms,” by Capt. Fred. H. Lang, details the method employed by the author for remounting diatoms, either previously badly mounted, or from which it is desirable to select certain forms.—“The Monad's Place in Nature,” by Metcalfe Johnson, M.R.C.S.E., has for its object to show a connection between the earlier forms called Monads, and those higher and more complicated organisms at present recognised under the name of Infusoria, Mucedinæ, Coniervæ, Oscillatoriæ, &c. The conclusions deduced from some of the experiments are that the author-looks upon Monas in its earliest forms to be the starting point whence several products may result, and among the number are Infusoria, Mucedinæ, Englenæ, Oscillatoriæ. He is induced to believe that the Pinpoint Monad, when developed under absence of light and only a limited quantity of air, gives rise to the class of plants known as Mucedinæ. Again, he maintains that during the watching of the liquids under experiment the Monads presented various forms, evidently transitional, from the round Pin-head Monad to oval young Paramcecia, until we come to sufficient size to give it a name such as Kolpoda Cucullus, &c. — “Infusorial Circuit of Generations,” by Theod. C. Hilgard, deals with a similar subject, but in a very different style. It is often very difficult to gather the author's meaning from language such as the following:— “And from each little dot in these ‘clouds of life’ a separate vorticella can be seen to develop! It is here, indeed, at this first visible advent or exordium of animate life, and the resurrection of millions of germs through the spontaneous dissolution of a single one, that the last nubecular microscopic perceptions closely resemble the last nebular telescopic as well as the theoretic ones of Laplace's cosmogony.” The concluding portion of this paper, which is reprinted from Stlliman's Journal, appears in the succeeding number, and is interesting as a contribution to the “curiosities of scientific literature.”
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Scientific Serials . Nature 5, 153–154 (1871). https://doi.org/10.1038/005153b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/005153b0