148 BOTANICAL RESULTS OF THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



of contamination from the ship and from spray. Growths of (apparently) Staphylo- 

 coccus pyogenes albus and of a yellow coccus, possibly StapJiylococcus pyogenes citreus, 

 were obtained, and also denitrifying organisms. 



Examinations made by exposing plates and tubes in the crow's-nest at the top of 

 the mainmast, during the same period, for as long as 20 hours, proved uniformly sterile. 

 In winter quarters, during the winter months, agar plates were occasionally exposed for 

 a few hours on the glacier abutting on the beach at the head of Scotia Bay. No growth 

 was ever obtained on any of these after incubation. No air examinations were made 

 during the summer months. 



Dr Gazert, at the Gauss's winter quarters, examined the air indirectly by making 

 cultures from freshly fallen snow. This was invariably found to be sterile. 



Dr Ekelof at Sn.owL.ill, by exposing Petri plates, found nearly half of his experiments 

 sterile. Of those in which growths occurred he found on an average that a Petri plate had 

 to be exposed for two hours for one bacterium to settle on it. He comes to the conclusion 

 that all the organisms he obtained from the air are impurities carried into it by the 

 wind from the soil, in which, despite the almost complete absence of organic matter, he 

 found a fairly abundant bacterial flora. 



REFERENCES. 



ERIK EKELOF, Wissenschaft. Ergeb. d. Schwed. Sudpo/.-Erped., 1901-08, Bd. iv., Lief. 7, Bacteriologische 



Studien, Stockholm, 1908. 



Mile. TSIKLINSKY, Exped. antarct. fratii^aise, 1903-0. 1 ), Flora Microbienne, Paris, 1908. 

 H. GAZERT, Veni/entlich. d. Institut f. Meereskunde, etc., Hft. 5, 1903, Bacteriol. Bericht. ; and Verhandl. 



d. XV. Deutsch. Geog. zu Dantzig, 1905; Dent. Siidpol.-Exped. ; Vorlauf. wissenschaft. Ergeb. ; Mitteil. 



iiber d. Vorkommen u. d. Tatigk. d. Bakt. im Meer. 



