Excerpt from List of Infusorial Objects, Found Chiefly in the Neighborhood of Salem, Massachusetts: With a Sketch of the Progress of This Branch of Natural History Many distinguished naturalists followed the course of investigation which Miiller had successfully pursued, and almost all of them drew their materials from the storehouse of his observations, and as they took their facts from him, so also they adopted his speculative opinions. Accordingly we find the doctrine of simplification in the organization both of the animal and vegetable kingdoms very generally supported, and even carried to the extreme of denying the existence of all organization in some classes of infusoria; and in connection with this doctrine, the theory ofspontane ons generation, or the primary existence of organic animal and vegetable forms from inorganic matter, was also main tained. Among those, who have advocated the doctrine of a gradual developement of organisms from inorganic mole cules up to the highest and most complex organization in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, Lamarck and Oken are conspicuous; the former held to the gradual develope ment of animals as the circumstances of their condition might require; the latter considered the ocean as the great storehouse whence terrestrial animals and vegetables, a little metamorphosed to suit them to their terrerie state, were derived. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.