By the use of electrically-heated calcium, he claims to have produced an almost perfect vacuum .-- ED.] Thanks to these studies, a considerable field has been opened up for biological research, but in this, which is not our subject, I shall notice one point only.

It has been proved that vital germs--bacteria, for example--may be kept for seven days at -190 deg.C.without their vitality being modified.

Phosphorescent organisms cease, it is true, to shine at the temperature of liquid air, but this fact is simply due to the oxidations and other chemical reactions which keep up the phosphorescence being then suspended, for phosphorescent activity reappears so soon as the temperature is again sufficiently raised.

An important conclusion has been drawn from these experiments which affects cosmogonical theories: since the cold of space could not kill the germs of life, it is in no way absurd to suppose that, under proper conditions, a germ may be transmitted from one planet to another.
Among the discoveries made with the new processes, the one which most strikingly interested public attention is that of new gases in the atmosphere.

We know how Sir William Ramsay and Dr.Travers first observed by means of the spectroscope the characteristics of the _companions_ of argon in the least volatile part of the atmosphere.
Sir James Dewar on the one hand, and Sir William Ramsay on the other, subsequently separated in addition to argon and helium, crypton, xenon, and neon.