232 ORGANISMS FOUND IN 



being satined by only a general focus, the objects varying so 

 much in size and photographing badly. The main point, how- 

 ever, is well indicated; that is, their extraordinary abundance. It 

 would have been better to have preserved them in some neutral 

 medium as solution of ammonia chromate, after staining by a 

 weak solution of logwood, or else to have killed them by a solu- 

 tion of chloral hydrate and mounted in weak potassic acetate 

 solution. In most cases it is exceedingly difficult to so apportion 

 the specific gravity or strength of the solutions that contraction 

 or swelling shall not occur at the same time that the objects are 

 preserved. Many of the solutions useful for other objects often 

 cause a coarse granulation to appear with considerable cloudiness 

 of structure. Being little interested at the moment in more than 

 the numbers present, the subject was not pursued. 



The examination was continued on the following day, and 

 proved, perhaps, the most interesting, though the previous con- 

 dition of the material led me to fear it would prove wholly futile. 

 I was considerably surprised to find an almost total absence of 

 the infusoria, and in their place scattered over the field numerous 

 active free commas and some consisting of two joints, with others 

 of several turns. In a fair number of those which might be 

 called mature, and in others consisting of the free joints, a dif- 

 ferentiation of the internal, usually homogeneous plasm could be 

 most beautifully seen, especially after the treatment, which will 

 be immediately noticed. 



The change varied from trivial shading, and passed into a more 

 or less distinct location at sundry points, leaving small spots or clear 

 spaces very distinctly indicated, some of these being circular, others 

 rather oval, and placed longwise across the breadth of the rod. 

 From two to four could be made out in many of the single joints 

 and from three to four in what would be each joint in the main 

 growth or mature spirillum. These I regard — though I avoid 

 making the assertion — as spores, not vacuoles, and think 

 they go far to support the statements recorded by the cele- 

 brated microscopist, Dr. Henri van Heurck, when photograph- 

 ing the commas or joints of the so-termed cholera bacilli with 

 an objective having the largest angular aperture yet constructed, 

 N.A. i'6., the objects being mounted in styrax with a very high 



