9 8 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



amined by the following method. Three litres of the water 

 were filtered through an ordinary chemical filter and were then 

 evaporated to dryness over the water bath. The residue was 

 digested with 5 c.c. of hot organically pure NH 3 free distilled 

 water and filtered. To a tube containing 5 c.c. coefficient jelly 



3 units of stain were added and 7 units of alkali, and the 

 total was made up to the necessary 10 c.c. by the addition of 



4 c.c. of the sample to be examined (2). The tube was then 

 placed in a beaker of boiling water till the jelly had melted, and 

 the reagents mixed thoroughly with it. It was then boiled in the 

 bunsen till it frothed up, and a drop or two was poured on to a 

 glass slide, where it was allowed to set firmly. Some blood 

 was taken from the finger and mixed with an equal volume of 

 citrate solution (3 per cent. sod. citrate and 1 per cent. sod. 

 chloride) to dilute it, and a drop of this was placed on a cover 

 glass, which was at once put on to the jelly. The specimen was 

 then placed in the 37 C. incubator and allowed to remain there 

 for ten minutes. The coefficient of diffusion of human lym- 

 phocytes is 14, and it will be seen from the following equation 

 that this jelly should just stain their nuclei in ten minutes at 

 37 C. 3 S + 7 A + 7 h + t - (3 C + N) = 14. The slide was then 

 taken from the incubator and examined with the microscope. 



If division figures were found in the majority of the lympho- 

 cytes, the pond was marked down as containing auxetics. In 

 order to determine the presence of kinetics, a tube of 5 c.c. 

 coefficient jelly had 5 units of stain added and 6 units of alkali, 

 the contents being made up to 10 c.c. with 3*9 c.c. of the sample. 

 Blood, as already described, was then placed on the jelly on a 

 slide and examined at room temperature (20 C), and if the 

 majority of the polymorphonuclear leucocytes showed exag- 

 gerated amoeboid movement the specimen was marked as con- 

 taining kinetics. Working in this manner, I examined samples 

 of water from twelve different ponds with the results shown in 

 the following table. 



These results were sufficiently satisfactory to make me deter- 

 mine to carry out a somewhat tedious and prolonged research 

 into the question. I determined, therefore, to examine samples 

 from the same ponds monthly, and in order to ascertain whether 

 the substances in solution had any effect on the auxetics and 

 kinetics present, a chemical analysis of the water was made in 

 each case. One of the chief objects in this research has been 



