The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-07-22
EXPERIMENTS ON sNA1Ls.
They Will Live Under Conditions
Which Would Appear TO Be Fatal.

They Will Live Under Conditions
Which Would Appear TO Be Fatal.
From Copenhagen Naturen og Mennesket
Spallanzani has proved that the COM
mon snail may be deprived of any of The
four conditions Of life and yet survive.
1t simply retires within its shell and
goes to sleep. Spallanzani cut small
openings in the shells Of the snails.
Through these he could clearly see the
functions Of life in operation. AS the
temperature gradually diminished, these
operations became weaker and weaker;
at degrees all movements ceased, and
the snail appeared TO be dead. As soon
as the temperature was raised movements
Indicative of life began agaiH by raising
the temperature TO normal hight, the
snail regained its normal powers. Thus
the eKperimenter quickened and reduced
life at mis- pleasure.
To prove that the absence of heat sus-
ponds the snail's animation through the
following experiments: When the snail
retired within its shell it closed It her.
metically, and both shell and operculum
were impenetrable to air. The scientist
bored very small hole in the operculum
and fastened a fine glass tube In 1t, ex-
GLIDING the possibility Of air getting In.
He then placed the snail under water and
forced air into the shell through the
tube. IL there were any fine openings in
the shell or the operculum. or II the snail
before entering had filed the shell with
air the air forced into IL by means Of
the tube would cause air bubbles to be
visible through the shell, but Spallanzani
could not detect any He made another
experiment TO test this.
He bored a hole in the operculum of
another snail, and again fitted an air
tight glass tube into IL and filed the tube
with quicksilver. He then turned tube
and snail upside down and dipped the end
Of the rule into a cup filled with quick
silver. If the snail's shell was absolutely
without air the tube would show IL, for il
would act like barometer. Spallanzani
found that there was no air inside Of the
shell. During the winter he placed sew
eral "snail barometers" side BY side with
ordinary barometers for comparison. The
''snail barometersn acted exactly as the
regular barometers.
Spallanzani, however, went further IL
was possible, he thought, that the snail,
before shutting himself up, might have
laid in supply OF air. He therefore ex-
tended his experiments 10 many speci-
mems, making examinations just after the
snail had retired, in the middle of winter,
and in the spring, and proved to
his satisfaction that the snail had not
breathed during the winter. He also
kept a number Of snails during the winter
on the bottoms OF glass Jars filed with
water, oil and quicksilver, proving con-
clussvely that they had no air supply
during that time. To prove that II is
want OF oxygen that puts the snails TO
sleep, he set them in a vessel filed with
hydrogen. For about ten minutes the
interior organs acted as usual. breathing
the hydrogen. but they suddenly ceased
and the snail closed the shell hy tho Oper-
culum and lay still. AZ the end Of five
hours Spalanzani forced a little atmos-
pheric air into the lungs Of tho snail, and
almost Immediately the heart began 70