Bacteria in relation to country life / by Jacob G. Lipman.

  • Jacob Goodale Lipman
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Bacteria in relation to country life / by Jacob G. Lipman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to combine with oxygen to form water and subse- quently, by causing the elementary sulfur deposited in their cells to combine with oxygen to form, with water, sulfuric acid. The last named combines with lime to form sulfate of lime. The tissues of dead plants and animals are made to give up their sulfur as sulfuretted hydrogen by the common soil bacteria. The sulfuretted hydrogen serves an important purpose in the life of a special group of bacteria, and the sulfur finally reap- pears as sulfate of lime, sulfate of magnesia, sulfate of soda, or sulfate of iron, and is in a condition again to be utilized by green plants. The transformation is thus complete, and the sulfur is ready to pass through another cycle and to circulate between land and sea. Sulfate of lime.—The drainage waters that pass out of the soil contain considerable quantities of sulfate of lime. The sea ultimately receives the latter as it re- ceives all else borne to it from the land and offers it to its denizens. Enormous quantities of gypsum are thus brought to the ocean daily and are constantly being added to by the restless streams. It should not be supposed, however, that the gypsum that finds its way to the sea is doomed to stay there unchanged and inert. Other bacteria, widely distributed in nature, are capable of compelling it to pass through other transformations and to part with its sulfur. Some of the most common decay bacteria, like Bacillus mycoides and Proteus vidgaris have been found capable of producing sulfur- etted hydrogen out of sulfate of lime and of thus chang- ing once again the sulfur into a gaseous compound. Aside from the decay bacteria, there are Avell-defined
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