Chapter 2

These would average about four times the size of _Bacterium termo_; and when once they gain a place on and about the putrefying tissues, their relatively powerful and incessant action, their enormous multitude, and the manner in which they glide over, under, and beside each other, as they invest the fermenting mass, is worthy of close study. It has been the life history of these organisms, and not their relations as ferment, that has specially occupied my fullest attention; but it would be in a high degree interesting if we could discover, or determine, what besides the vegetative or organic processes of nutrition are being effected by one, or both, of these organisms on the fast yielding mass. Still more would it be of interest to discover what, if any, changes were wrought in the pabulum, or fluid generally. For after some extended observations I have found that it is only after one or other or both, of these organisms have performed their part in the destructive ferment, that subsequent and extremely interesting changes arise.

It is true that in some three or four instances of this saprophytic destruction of organic tissues, I have observed that, after the strong bacterial investment, there has arisen, not the two forms just named, nor either of them, but one or other of the striking forms now called _Tetramitus rostratus_ and _Polytoma uvella_; but this has been in relatively few instances. The rule is that _Cercomonas typica_ or its congener precedes other forms, that not only succeed them in promoting and carrying to a still further point the putrescence of the fermenting substance, but appear to be aided in the accomplishment of this by mechanical means.

By this time the mass of tissue has ceased to cohere. The mass has largely disintegrated, and there appears among the countless bacterial and monad forms some one, and sometimes even three forms, that while they at first swim and gyrate, and glide about the decomposing matter, which is now much less closely invested by _Cercomonas typica_, or those organisms that may have acted in its place, they also resort to an entirely new mode of movement.

One of these forms is _Heteromita rostrata_, which, it will be remembered, in addition to a front flagellum, has also a long fiber or flagellum-like appendage that gracefully trails as it swims. At certain periods of its life they anchor themselves in countless billions all over the fermenting tissues, and as I have described in the life history of this form, they coil their anchored fiber, as does a vorticellan, bringing the body to the level of the point of anchorage, then shoot out the body with lightning-like rapidity, and bring it down like a hammer on some point of the decomposition. It rests here for a second or two, and repeats the process; and this is taking place by what seems almost like rhythmic movement all over the rotting tissue. The results are scarcely visible in the mass. But if a group of these organisms be watched, attached to a small particle of the fermenting tissue, it will be seen to gradually diminish, and at length to disappear.

Now, there are at least two other similar forms, one of which, _Heteromita uncinata_, is similar in action, and the other of which, _Dallingeria drysdali_, is much more powerful, being possessed of a double anchor, and springing down upon the decadent mass with relatively far greater power.

Now, it is under the action of these last forms that in a period varying from one month to two or three the entire substance of the organic tissues disappears, and the decomposition has been designated by me "exhausted"; nothing being left in the vessel but slightly noxious and pale gray water, charged with carbonic acid, and a fine, buff colored, impalpable sediment at the bottom.

My purpose is not, by this brief notice, to give an exhaustive, or even a sufficient account, of the progress of fermentative action, by means of saprophytic organisms, on great masses of tissue; my observations have been incidental, but they lead me to the conclusion that the fermentative process is not only not carried through by what are called saprophytic bacteria, but that a _series_ of fermentative organisms arise, which succeed each other, the earlier ones preparing the pabulum or altering the surrounding medium, so as to render it highly favorable to a succeeding form. On the other hand, the succeeding form has a special adaptation for carrying on the fermentative destruction more efficiently from the period at which it arises, and thus ultimately of setting free the chemical elements locked up in dead organic compounds.

That these later organisms are saprophytic, although not bacterial, there can be no doubt. A set of experiments, recorded by me in the proceedings of this society some years since, would go far to establish this (_Monthly Microscopical Journal_, 1876, p. 288). But it may be readily shown, by extremely simple experiments, that these forms will set up fermentative decomposition rapidly if introduced in either a desiccated or living condition, or in the spore state, into suitable but sterilized pabulum.

Thus while we have specific ferments which bring about definite and specific results, and while even infusions of proteid substances may be exhaustively fermented by saprophytic bacteria, the most important of all ferments, that by which nature's dead organic masses are removed, is one which there is evidence to show is brought about by the successive vital activities of a series of adapted organisms, which are forever at work in every region of the earth.

There is one other matter of some interest and moment on which I would say a few words. To thoroughly instructed biologists, such words will be quite needless; but, in a society of this kind, the possibilities that lie in the use of the instrument are associated with the contingency of large error, especially in the biology of the minuter forms of life, unless a well grounded biological knowledge form the basis of all specific inference, to say nothing of deduction.

I am the more encouraged to speak of the difficulty to which I refer, because I have reason to know that it presents itself again and again in the provincial societies of the country, and is often adhered to with a tenacity worthy of a better cause. I refer to the danger that always exists, that young or occasional observers are exposed to, amid the complexities of minute animal and vegetable life, of concluding that they have come upon absolute evidences of the transformation of one minute form into another; that in fact they have demonstrated cases of heterogenesis.

This difficulty is not diminished by the fact that on the shelves of most microscopical societies there is to be found some sort of literature written in support of this strange doctrine.

You will pardon me for allusion again to the field of inquiry in which I have spent so many happy hours. It is, as you know, a region of life in which we touch, as it were, the very margin of living things. If nature were capricious anywhere, we might expect to find her so here. If her methods were in a slovenly or only half determined condition, we might expect to find it here. But it is not so. Know accurately what you are doing, use the precautions absolutely essential, and through years of the closest observation it will be seen that the vegetative and vital processes generally, of the very simplest and lowliest life forms, are as much directed and controlled by immutable laws as the most complex and elevated.

The life cycles, accurately known, of monads repeat themselves as accurately as those of rotifers or planarians.

And of course, on the very surface of the matter, the question presents itself to the biologist why it should not be so. The irrefragable philosophy of modern biology is that the most complex forms of living creatures have derived their splendid complexity and adaptations from the slow and majestically progressive variation and survival from the simpler and the simplest forms. If, then, the simplest forms of the present and the past were not governed by accurate and unchanging laws of life, how did the rigid certainties that manifestly and admittedly govern the more complex and the most complex come into play?

If our modern philosophy of biology be, as we know it is, true, then it must be very strong evidence indeed that would lead us to conclude that the laws seen to be universal break down and cease accurately to operate where the objects become microscopic, and our knowledge of them is by no means full, exhaustive, and clear.

Moreover, looked at in the abstract, it is a little difficult to conceive why there should be more uncertainty about the life processes of a group of lowly living things than there should be about the behavior, in reaction, of a given group of molecules.

The triumph of modern knowledge is the certainty, which nothing can shake, that nature's laws are immutable. The stability of her processes, the precision of her action, and the universality of her laws, is the basis of all science, to which biology forms no exception. Once establish, by clear and unmistakable demonstration, the life history of an organism, and truly some change must have come over nature as a whole, if that life history be not the same to-morrow as to-day; and the same to one observer, in the same conditions, as to another.

No amount of paradox would induce us to believe that the combining proportions of hydrogen and oxygen had altered, in a specified experimenter's hands, in synthetically producing water.

We believe that the melting point of platinum and the freezing point of mercury are the same as they were a hundred years ago, and as they will be a hundred years hence.

Now, carefully remember that so far as we can see at all, it must be so with life. Life inheres in protoplasm; but just as you cannot get _abstract matter_--that is, matter with no properties or modes of motion--so you cannot get _abstract_ protoplasm. Every piece of living protoplasm we see has a history; it is the inheritor of countless millions of years. Its properties have been determined by its history. It is the protoplasm of some definite form of life which has inherited its specific history. It can be no more false to that inheritance than an atom of oxygen can be false to its properties.

All this, of course, within the lines of the great secular processes of the Darwinian laws; which, by the way, could not operate at all if caprice formed any part of the activities of nature.

But let me give a practical instance of how what appears like fact may override philosophy, if an incident, or even a group of incidents, _per se_ are to control our judgment.

Eighteen years ago I was paying much attention to vorticellæ. I was observing with some pertinacity _Vorticella convallaria_; for one of the calices in a group under observation was in a strange and semi-encysted state, while the remainder were in full normal activity.

I watched with great interest and care, and have in my folio still the drawings made at the time. The stalk carrying this individual calyx fell upon the branch of vegetable matter to which the vorticellan was attached, and the calyx became perfectly globular; and at length there emerged from it a small form with which, in this condition, I was quite unfamiliar; it was small, tortoise-like in form, and crept over the branch on setæ or hair-like pedicels; but, carefully followed, I found it soon swam, and at length got the long neck-like appendage of _Amphileptus anser_!

Here then was the cup or calyx of a definite vorticellan form changing into (?) an absolutely different infusorian, viz., _Amphileptus anser_!

Now I simply reported the _fact_ to the Liverpool Microscopical Society, with no attempt at inference; but two years after I was able to explain the mystery, for, finding in the same pond both _V. convallaria_ and _A. anser_, I carefully watched their movements, and saw the _Amphileptus_ seize and struggle with a calyx of _convallaria_, and absolutely become encysted upon it, with the results that I had reported two years before.

And there can be no doubt but this is the key to the cases that come to us again and again of minute forms suddenly changing into forms wholly unlike. It is happily among the virtues of the man of science to "rejoice in the truth," even though it be found at his expense; and true workers, earnest seekers for nature's methods, in the obscurest fields of her action, will not murmur that this source of danger to younger microscopists has been pointed out, or recalled to them.

And now I bid you, as your president, farewell. It has been all pleasure to me to serve you. It has enlarged my friendships and my interests, and although my work has linked me with the society for many years, I have derived much profit from this more organic union with it; and it is a source of encouragement to me, and will, I am sure, be to you, that, after having done with simple pleasure what I could, I am to be succeeded in this place of honor by so distinguished a student of the phenomena of minute life as Dr. Hudson. I can but wish him as happy a tenure of office as mine has been.

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INQUIRIES REGARDING THE INCUBATOR.

P.H. JACOBS.

Space in the _Rural_ is valuable, and so important a subject as artificial incubation cannot perhaps be made entirely plain to a novice in a few articles; but as interested parties have written for additional information, it may interest others to answer them here. Among the questions asked are: "Does the incubator described in the _Rural_ dispense entirely with the use of a lamp, using at intervals a bucket of water to maintain proper temperature? I fear this will not be satisfactory unless the incubator is kept in a warm room or cellar."

All incubators must be kept in a warm location, whether operated by a lamp or otherwise. The warmer the room or cellar, the less warmth required to be supplied. Bear in mind that the incubator recommended has four inches of sawdust surrounding it, and more sawdust would still be an advantage. The sawdust is not used to protect against the outside temperature, but to absorb and hold a large amount of heat, and that is the secret of its success. The directions given were to first fill the tank with boiling water and allow it to remain for 24 hours. In the meantime the sawdust absorbs the heat, and more boiling water is then added until the egg-drawer is about 110 or 115 degrees. By this time there is a quantity of stored heat in the sawdust. The eggs will cool the drawer to 103. The loss of heat (due to its being held by the sawdust) will be very slow. All that is needed then is to supply that which will be lost in 12 hours, and a bucket of boiling water should keep the heat about correct, if added twice a day, but it may require more, as some consideration must be given to fluctuations of the temperature of the atmosphere. The third week of incubation, owing to animal heat from the embryo chicks, a bucket of boiling water will sometimes hold temperature for 24 hours. No objection can be urged against attaching a lamp arrangement, but a lamp is dangerous at night, while the flame must be regulated according to temperature. The object of giving the hot water method was to avoid lamps. We have a large number of them in use (no lamps) here, and they are equal to any others in results.

With all due respect to some inquirers, the majority of them seem afraid of the work. Now, there is some work with all incubators. What is desired is to get rid of the anxiety. I stated that a bucket of water twice a day would suffice. I trusted to the judgment of the reader somewhat. Of course, if the heat in the egg drawer is 90 degrees, and the weather cold, it may then take a wash boiler full of water to get the temperature back to 103 degrees, but when it is at 103 keep it there, even if it occasionally requires two buckets of boiling water. To judge of what may be required, let us suppose the operator looks at the thermometer in the morning, and it is exactly 103 degrees. He estimates that it will lose a little by night, and draws off half a bucket of water. At night he finds it at 102. Knowing that it is on what we term "the down grade," he applies a bucket and a half (always allowing for the night being colder than the day). As stated, the sawdust will not allow the drawer to become too cold, as it gives off heat to the drawer. And, as the sawdust absorbs, it is not easy to have the heat too high. One need not even look at the drawer until the proper times. No watching--the incubator regulates itself. If a lamp is used, too much heat may accumulate. The flame must be occasionally turned up or down, and the operator must remain at home and watch it, while during the third week he will easily cook his eggs.

The incubator can be made at home for so small a sum (about $5 for the tank, $1 for faucet, etc., with 116 feet of lumber) that it will cost but little to try it. A piece of glass can be placed in front of the egg drawer, if preferred. If the heat goes down to 90, or rises at times to 105, no harm is done. But it works well, and hatches, the proof being that hundreds are in use. I did not give the plan as a theory or an experiment. They are in practical use here, and work alongside of the more expensive ones, and have been in use for four years. To use a lamp attachment, all that is necessary is to have a No. 2 burner lamp with a riveted sheet-iron chimney, the chimney fitting over the flame, like an ordinary globe, and extending the chimney (using an elbow) through the tank from the rear, ending in front. It should be soldered at the tank. The heat from the lamp will then pass through the chimney and consequently warm the surrounding water.--_Rural New-Yorker._

[For description and illustrations of this incubator see SUPPLEMENT, No. 630.]

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THE PEAK OF TENERIFFE.

The Hon. Ralph Abercromby made a trip to the island of Teneriffe in October, 1887, for the purpose of making some electrical and meteorological observations, and now gives some of the results which he obtained, which may be summarized as follows: The electrical condition of the peak of Teneriffe was found to be the same as in every other part of the world. The potential was moderately positive, from 100 to 150 volts, at 5 ft. 5 in. from the ground, even at considerable altitudes; but the tension rose to 549 volts on the summit of the peak, 12,200 ft., and to 247 volts on the top of the rock of Gayga, 7,100 feet. A large number of halos were seen associated with local showers and cloud masses. The necessary ice dust appeared to be formed by rising currents. The shadow of the peak was seen projected against the sky at sunset. The idea of a southwest current flowing directly over the northeast trade was found to be erroneous. There was always a regular vertical succession of air currents in intermediate directions at different levels from the surface upward, so that the air was always circulating on a complicated screw system.

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ESTRADE'S HIGH SPEED LOCOMOTIVE.

We illustrate a very remarkable locomotive, which has been constructed from the designs of M. Estrade, a French engineer. This engine was exhibited last year in Paris. Although the engine was built, M. Estrade could not persuade any railway company to try it for him, and finally he applied to the French government, who have at last sanctioned the carrying out of experiments with it on one of the state railway lines. The engine is in all respects so opposed to English ideas that we have hitherto said nothing about it. As, however, it is going to be tried, an importance is given to it which it did not possess before; and, as a mechanical curiosity, we think it is worth the consideration of our readers.

In order that we may do M. Estrade no injustice, we reproduce here in a condensed form, and in English, the arguments in its favor contained in a paper written by M. Max de Nansouty, C.E., who brought M. Estrade's views before the French Institution of Civil Engineers, on May 21, 1886. M. Nansouty's paper has been prepared with much care, and contains a great deal of useful data quite apart from the Estrade engine. The paper in question is entitled "_Memoire relatif au Materiel Roulant a Grand Vitesse_," D.M. Estrade.

About thirty years ago, M. Estrade, formerly pupil of the Polytechnic School, invented rolling stock for high speed under especial conditions, and capable of leading to important results, more especially with regard to speed. Following step by step the progress made in the construction of railway stock, the inventor, from time to time, modified and improved his original plan, and finally, in 1884, arrived at the conception of a system entirely new in its fundamental principles and in its execution. A description of this system is the object of the memoir.

The great number of types of locomotives and carriages now met with in France, England, and the United States renders it difficult to combine their advantages, as M. Estrade proposed to do, in a system responding to the requirements of the constructor. His principal object, however, has been to construct, under specially favorable conditions, a locomotive, tender, and rolling stock adapted to each other, so as to establish a perfect accord between these organs when in motion. It is, in fact, a complete train, and not, as sometimes supposed, a locomotive only, of an especial type, which has been the object he set before him. Before entering into other considerations, we shall first give a description of the stock proposed by M. Estrade. The idea of the invention consists in the use of coupled wheels of large diameter and in the adoption of a new system of double suspension.

The locomotive and tender we illustrate were constructed by MM. Boulet & Co. The locomotive is carried on six driving wheels, 8 feet 3 inches in diameter. The total weight of the engine is thus utilized for adhesion. The accompanying table gives the principal dimensions:

TABLE I.

+---------------------------------------+ | | ft. in. | +-----------------------+---------------+ |Total length of engine.| 32 8 | +-----------------------+---------------+ |Width between frames. | 4 1 | +-----------------------+---------------+ |Wheel base, total. | 16 9 | +-----------------------+---------------+ |Diameter of cylinder. | 1 6½ | +-----------------------+---------------+ |Length of stroke. | 2 3½ | +-----------------------+---------------+ |Grate surface. | 25 sq. feet. | +-----------------------+---------------+ |Total heating surface. | 1,400 sq. ft. | +-----------------------+---------------+ |Weight empty. | 38 tons. | +-----------------------+---------------+ |Weight full. | 42 tons. | +---------------------------------------+

The high speeds--77 to 80 miles an hour--in view of which this stock has been constructed have, it will be seen, caused the elements relative to the capacity of the boiler and the heating surfaces to be developed as much as possible. It is in this, in fact, that one of the great difficulties of the problem lies, the practical limit of stability being fixed by the diameter of the driving wheels. Speed can only be obtained by an expenditure of steam which soon becomes such as rapidly to exhaust the engine unless the heating surface is very large.

The tender, also fitted with wheels of 8 ft. 3 in. in diameter, offers no particular feature; it is simply arranged so as to carry the greatest quantity of coal and water.