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and clogs there. He thought this condition of things was 

 conducive to Rotifer life rather than otherwise. 



Mr. Hardy said that when the New River was at its worst, 

 then was the best time to find these organisms. 



Mr. Ingpen said he went dredging some time ago to Leigh, 

 near Southend, and got a lot of common marine organisms, 

 which he brought up to London in a quantity of water from the 

 place, but he found they all died when he put them into his 

 aquarium. The water in which he found them was practically 

 sewage water, and they lived in that all right, but as soon as 

 they got into other water they died. 



Mr. Bryce thought an important point in keeping these 

 things alive was to have plenty of weed of some kind in the 

 water, for directly they put a lot of creatures into the water 

 they began to exhaust the oxygen, but if there was some weed 

 growing there it kept up the supply and purified the water. 

 With plenty of weed in the bottles there was no trouble, and 

 he had kept a fish in water in this way for three months, and 

 he had all sorts of Entomostraea, etc., but directly he took 

 the plants out the fish died and he kept nothing. 



Mr. V. Gunson Thorpe said the whole of this discussion 

 seemed to be based upon the assumption that, the water in the 

 pools and ditches he had referred to was sewage water, whereas 

 the water was pure. If the sewage got into the water this 

 would be regarded as waste, and the Chinese never wasted 

 anything. They collected and preserved all sewage in wells or 

 receptacles made for the purpose. No doubt plant life helped 

 to keep water pure, and the abundance of plant life here was 

 remarkable. The extremes of temperature in these parts were 

 very great, for whilst the summer heat was very great, in 

 winter these ponds were thickly frozen over. Of course, when 

 he spoke of the water being pure he did not mean fit to drink, 

 for China was the home of cholera, and the deaths from that 

 disease every year might almost be reckoned by millions. The 

 cholera bacillus seemed to abound, and probably the country 

 would be decimated if it were not that the Chinese almost 

 invariably drank things hot — indeed, if a great Mandarin 

 invited a number of distinguished persons to visit him he 

 would probably offer them boiling champagne. In the plains 

 of China the ponds were kept from being polluted by being so 

 far from any houses, but there would be ponds all around, so 



