Apeil 1, 1869.] 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



79 



I have placed a few additional lines, and to give 

 you all that is known by me of its story. 



Lieut. Stansbury, in his exploration to Great Salt 

 Lake in 1849, speaks confidently of its waters being 

 devoid of life, or any signs of life, save the cast skins 

 of some insect (perfect form not found, and name 

 unknown), which in certain portions of the lake 

 were very numerous, lying beneath the water on 

 the muddy bottom. From that time till now no 

 observer seems to have referred to this feature of 

 the natural history of the lake. 



In October 1868, Major-Gen. G. K. Warren, a 

 Ihoroughly scientific man, and one of the Special 

 Commissioners sent out by our Government to see 

 that the Pacific Pailroad is being properly built, was 



these few days in turpentine, and giving it finally a 

 balsam mounting. Standing so long as it did in the 

 live-box, the salt began to crystallize, and the result 

 was that in taking it out I lost a portion of the 

 snout and a very little of the tail. 



I am unable to find any indication of eye-spots. 

 It has eight pairs of short legs, each with ten* toes, 

 terminating in a sharp, black, curved claw, like that 

 of a dog. The animal is | of an inch in length, about 

 equally divided between the body, including the 

 head and the tail. The tail near its termination 

 divides as indicated in the figure. The animal 

 evidently had power to vary the position of these 

 terminal appendages, as at one time, when I first 

 took him from the water, they projected directly 



Nat SKze 



51. Animal- raou Salt Lake (magnified). 



at Salt Lake. He noticed that the lake was much 

 higher than when he last saw it, and several feet 

 higher than when Stansbury was there in 1849. 



Desiring to ascertain how nearly it approached 

 saturation, and to compare it in this respect with 

 Stausbury's analysis, he filled a champagne bottle 

 with it, and sent it by express to our Academy of 

 Sciences, the Secretary of which sent it to me for a 

 report. 



The quart bottle contained hundreds of crustacea, 

 which I identified as Artemia salina, Leach, and of 

 the singular form whose figure I inclose, but that 

 one specimen. 



Desiring to exhibit the stranger to our Academy, 

 and not daring to attempt a permanent mounting of 

 it till after the meeting, I placed it in my live-box 

 with some of the salt-water from the lake, made the 

 camera drawing at once, and then kept it a week 

 just as it was, exhibited it at the Academy, and 

 mounted it some days afterwards, soaking it for 



backward in a straight line with the main portion of 

 the tail. Just after the tail leaves the body are the 

 two organs indicated, in which I could detect no 

 structure differing from the tail proper. The anus 

 I have indicated thus * . It is near the posterior 

 pair of legs. Occupying the larger portion of the 

 interior of the body is the oblong sac lettered A. 

 I was unable by any devices to throw light through 

 it so as to make out its structure, but believe it to 

 represent the digestive apparatus. Extending the 

 whole length of the body are the respiratory tubes. 

 They were plainly visible in the head, and through- 

 out the tail, passing to the very extremities of both 

 pairs of appendages, and being much knotted as in- 

 dicated near the posterior portion of the body. 



* I count ten claws on two feet not belonging to the same 

 pair, and on the other fourteen feet I count nine claws, 

 unmistakably with indications of the tenth in nearly every 

 instance, so I think I am safe in saying ten claws to each 

 foot. 



