In the sand containing wheel animals and sloths, a third resurgent animalcula exists, though it is rarely found. This is a microscopic eel, resembling the vi briones, or4els of vinegar. The head and tail are of a transparent shining silver colour, and the intermediate part darkish, and granulated over the surface. When in the quiescent state, those eels are contracted, mo• tionless, and generally bent into a spiral figure. When fully revived by humectation, their activity is as great as that of the eels of vinegar. They die on evaporation of their fluid, but resist death longer than the two pre ceding animals, as a sensible degree of motion conti nues several minutes after evaporation. The presence • of sand is not indispensible for their resurrection, though it promotes it. Neither is such complete humectation necessary, as they exhibit signs of life on being merely sprinkled with water, while the sloth and the wheel animal require total immersion. When among sand, humectation during a quarter of an hour will revive them ; but if in pure water, there is a great difference, according to circumstances. Should it be only the first or second resurrection, the time of recovery will be nearly the same : it always increases in proportion to the frequency of revival ; and an hour, or sometimes more, is required for the fourth. Part of their activity is lost with each resurrection ; they become more and more languid, and die for ever at the eighth or ninth.
There is still another animal known, which enjoys the privilege of resurrection, in a degree no less eminent than that of the rest; and, considering the place where it is most abundantly found, its nature may perhaps be considered even more extraordinary than theirs. The external appearance of a grain of blighted corn resem bles soot, and its internal substance consists of a dry whitish matter, which examination with the microscope exhibits as an aggregate of linear corpuscula, intricately interwoven together. Mr Needham, in the course of a microscopical observation, having moistened this sub stance, for the purpose of unravelling it, was agreeably surprised to see it immediately testify signs of anima tion, and the dry shrivelled corpuscula afterwards ex pand into so many lively active eels. Many naturalists have repeated his experiments, and established a num • ber of interesting facts. If the fluid containing the eels evaporates, they. gradually become lifeless; when to tally gone, their motion has ceased. Unlike the other resurgent animals, they hare not the prudence to fly the places where the water dries ; they continue attached to the same spot, without attempting to escape. On the fluid being restored, re-animation ensues, first be ginning with gentle oscillations, then with writhing and contortion, and, lastly, with the full attainment of lively action. But it is to be remarked, that these animals
have no progressive motion ; they neither rise in the water, nor crawl along the sides of the vessel contain ing them ; thence they arc always found at the bottom, appearing like a pellicle, lighter or darker, according to their numbers. The time of immersion required for their revival is various ; some recover in three hours, or less. Baker quotes an instance, where it was not less than forty hours; and, in certain cases, whole days are necessary. Resurrection is accelerated by heat, apd retarded by cold. Speaking of these animals, Spann.; zani observes, that the oftener humectation is repeated, there will be the fewer resurgents. " I had a number of lively eels in a watch-glass, the first time they were revived. One thousandth part did not recover the time ; and the seventeenth there was not one." The heat of 144° and 149° destroys them almost imme diately, though they can support 140° for several hours. If the grains which they inhabit have been wet, and ex posed to heat, few eels will revive after 138°. A vacu um does not prevent their resurrection.
There are undoubtedly limits, when, by the lapse of time, the resurgent faculty will be lost; but these are yet undefined. Mr Needham carried blighted wheat from England to Portugal, the eels of which revived after two years desiccation. Baker recovered them af ter four years: and they are said to have revived after the extraordinary interval of twenty-seven years, a fact almost beyond belief.
We confess ourselves unable to offer any satisfactory hypothesis, on the singular phenomenon of resurrection. It is better to avow our incapacity than to indulge in uncertain speculations on so profound and important an enquiry. Though analogies may render the subsist ence of suspended animation, for an unlimited period, less repugnant to the human understanding, and even pave the way to the future solution of this interesting problem, we feel the insuperable difficulty of accounting for resurrection, until it shall be clearly ascertained in what the principle of life consists.
II. The bodies of few animalS are exempt from para sites, which, in feeding upon them, often produce dis ease, and sometimes death ; such are the txnix, asca rides, hydatides, and the like, confining ourselves to those that have a permanent internal dwelling. But innumerable myriads of beings are believed so; hence their natural abode in that prolific fluid of males, which is destined to perpetuate their species, and these are productive of no disease. From the substance they in habit, they have been denominated seminal vermiculi.