WHITEFISH OF THE LAKE OF GENEVA 



wonders, however glorious and magnificent, are not 

 the only ones. There are others, of a greater, more 

 mysterious beauty, of an extent as vast as it is un- 

 suspected. And there is the wonder of the multitude 

 of minute lives which the water contains, whose im- 

 mense number makes up for the minute size of the 

 individual. Not only is the water of the lake glorified 

 by such magnificent shades of colour, flashing beneath 

 the rays of the sun, but it is quivering with the life it 

 supports throughout its whole mass. It is not inert, 

 not simply mineral: it does not only reflect all that 

 surrounds it; it is alive, active — each drop of it con- 

 tains beings full of life, to whom it furnishes the 

 wherewithal of existence. 



These microscopic unicellular creatures, both animal 

 and vegetable, live directly on the water which surrounds 

 and contains them. They draw from it, without any 

 intermediary, the material substances they require, in 

 a state of solution. They form their living flesh out 

 of inanimate matter. From it and through it they 

 receive the warmth and light they need. Thanks to 

 them, the water, most primitive of all environments, 

 draws from itself the resources favouring not only the 

 existence but the development of organized beings. 

 It becomes creative. Essentially a mineral element, 

 itself incapable of change, it yet engenders the changing 

 and alterable flesh of living creatures. It confers the 

 gift of existence upon the smallest, and so ensures, 

 more and more closely, the existence of all the rest, 

 including the strongest and most highly organized. 



The cycle of nutrition in the lake is based upon these 

 first creatures, directly maintained by the water itself 

 under the action of the energies which pass through 

 it. It is to them that are due the capacity and the 

 virtue of collecting into one quivering flesh those 

 mineral substances which, themselves inert, must con- 

 stitute it as it develops, and increase its volume from 

 the germ whence each develops. The cycle begins 

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