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Show 4 Additional Notes. Not only microscopic animals appear to be proclu~ed by u spo~taneous vital process, and then quickly improve by ~ohtary gene~·atwn like the buds of trees, or like the polypus and aph1s, but there 1s one vegetable body, which appears to be produced by a spon~aneous vital process, and is believed to be propagated ~~d enlarged 111 so short a time by solitary o·eneration as to become VISible to the naked eye; I mean the oTeen 1~atter first attended to by Dr. Priestley, and called by him co~ferva fontinalis. The proofs, that this material is a vegetable, are from its giving up so much oxygen, when exposed to the sunshine as it oTows in water, and from its green colour. Dr. Ingenh~uz asserts, that by filling a bottle with well-water, and inverting it immediately into a basin of well-water, this green vegetable is formed in great quantity; and he believes, that the water itself, or some substance contained in the ~vater, is converted into this kind of vegetation, which then quickly propagates itself: J\1. Girtanner asserts, that this green vegetable matter is not produced by water and heat alone, but requires the sun's light for tbis purpose, as he observed by many experiments, and thinks it ari cs from decomposing water deprived of a part of its oxygen, and laughs at Dr. Priestley for believiug that the se.eds of this conferva, and the parents of microscopic animals, exist universally in the atmosphere, and penetrate the sides of glass jars; Phi los. Magazine for ~I ay 1800. Besides this green vegetable matter of Dr. Priestley, there is another vegetable, the minute beginnings of the growth of which l\1r. Ellis observed by his microscope near the surface of all putre(ying vege~ table or animal matter, which is the mucor or mouldiness; the vegetation of which was amazingly quick so as to be almost seen, and soon became so large as to be visible to the naked eye. It is difficult to conceive how the seeds of this mucor can float so universally in the atmosphere as to fix itself on all putrid matter in all places. Theory of Spontaneous Vitality. IV. In animal nutrition the organic matter of the bodies of dead animals, or vegetables, is taken into the stomach, and there suffers Spontaneous Vitality if Microscopic Animals. decompos.itions and new combinations by a chemical process. Some parts of It are ~owever absorbed by the lacteals as fast as they are produced by th1s process of digestion; in which circumstance this process differs from common chemical operations. In vegetable nutrition the organic matter of dead animals, or vegetables, undergoes chemical decompositions and new combinations on or beneath the surface of the earth; and parts of it, as they are p1~od~ced.' are ~erpetually absorbed by the roots of the plants in contact With It; m wh1ch this also differs from common chemical processes. Hence the particles which are produced from dead organic matter by chemical decompositions or new consequent combinations are found proper for the purposes of the nutrition of living vegetabl~ and animal bodies, whether these decompositions and new combinations are performed in the stomach or beneath the soiL J'or the purposes of nutrition these digested or decomposed recrements of dead animal or vegetable matter are absorbed by the lacteals of the stomachs of animals or of the roots of vegetables, and carried into the circulation of their blood, and these compose new organic parts to replace others which are destroyed, or to increase the growth of the plant or animal. It is probable, that as in inanimate or chemical combinations, one of the composing materials must possess a power of attraction, and the other an aptitude to be attracted; so in organic or animated compositions th ere must be particles . with appetencies to unite, and other particles with propensities to be united with them. Thus in the generation of the buds of trees, it is probable that two kinds of vegetable matter, as they are separated from the solid system, and float in the circulation, become arrested by two kinds of vegetable glands, and are then deposed beneath the cuticle of the tree, and there join together forming a new vegetable, the caudex of which extends from the plumula at the summit to the radicles beneath the soil, and constitutes a single fibre of the baric 'These particles appear t~ be of two kinds; one of them possessing an appet ency to unite with the other, and the latter a propensity to be united with the former; and they are probably separated from the vegetable blood by two kinds of glands, one represet1ting those of the |