Copy 1, Volume 1

Tracts on the natural history of animals and vegetables / Translated from the original Italian by John Graham Dalyell, with physiological illustrations by the translator.

  • Spallanzani, Lazzaro, 1729-1799
Date:
1803
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tracts on the natural history of animals and vegetables / Translated from the original Italian by John Graham Dalyell, with physiological illustrations by the translator. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    151/442 (page 55)
    % This was not enough. I was eager to fee what happened as the water gradually froze.—-A large drop of infufion being prepared, it was adjufted to the microfcope: ‘The circumference, that is, the thinneft part, froze firft. The animalcula retreated from the edge to the interior of the fluid. As the freezing advanced, they {till re- ceded, until collected in a mafs in the middle of the drop, where it was yet fluid. When this alfo froze, the life and motion of the animalcula ceafed. On repeating the experiment, they again fled to the centre, and died there as the drop hardened into ice. Two other glaffes being filled with fi- milar infufions, they took an hour to freeze; and this infinite army of animalcula had fo concen- D4 . trated fome f{pecies that have furvived the congelation of infu- fions ;—a fact which it has not been my fortune to witnels : and I muft fuppofe, he convinced himfelf the infufions were perfectly frozen. Quaedam (7. e. Animalia'Infuforia ) rigorem frigoris fuftinent aquaque gelu foluta, eodem nu- rnero, vigoreque priftino circumnatant, alia gelu affecta periere. ‘Thus does he exprefs himfelf, in his treatife on Infufion Animalcula, Leipfic, 1773, 1774. I regret that this work did not come to my knowledge unti: too late to ufe it in the text of my manufcript; which was al- ready tranfcribed. ‘The lofs can only be repaired by notes; particularly as the author and myfelf have fre- quently remarked the fame fa@s; or difcuffed analogous problems.