WATER, WATER ANALYSIS, AND THE MICROSCOPE. 287 
is but very slowly purified, either by violent agitation on a small 
scale in the laboratory, or by the aération to which it is subjected 
in passing over weirs and falls in a river-bed. Again, recent 
research clearly shows the extreme tenacity of life which is possessed 
by the low organisms or bacteria which are supposed to be.allied 
to those capable of communicating zymotic disease, a tenacity 
which will certainly not yield to the hardships of a few hours’ bath 
in river-water. 
** Moreover, that the Thames water reaches the intakes of the 
water companies with a but slightly diminished quantity of organic 
matter, is unanswerably attested by chemical analysis. 
‘Owing to the official surveillance which for some years past has 
been kept over the metropolitan water-supply, the appearance of 
the water as it reaches the consumer is very different from what it 
is in the river itself at the intakes of the companies. For no com- 
pany would now venture to supply water which was actually offen- 
sive to the eye. 
“Of the eighty-four samples of Thames and Lea water that 
passed through my hands during the past year, nearly all were, as 
far as eye-judgment is concerned, unimpeachable. But it must not 
be supposed that this has always been the case. All of us must be 
able readily to call to mind occasions when the water drawn in 
London was, in appearance, not so far removed from that of the 
river-water at Hampton.” 
August and September of every year, bring with them numerous 
complaints of the drinking-water supplied by the Corporation of 
Manchester. Minnows, insects, and other organisms, are often 
found coming through the taps. This has been denied again and 
again, but the following letter from the Alanchester City News 
seems to place the matter beyond doubt :— 
“‘Srr,—the four enclosed specimens of fish, apparently belonging 
to the whitebait order, insignificant in size and possibly yet inoffen- 
sive, may be deemed interesting as having been captured this 
(Thursday) morning fresh from the Corporation main hard by the 
south-east corner of Owens College—taken alive and kicking from 
the pools left after the filling of a watering cart. I had hastily 
classed them among the ‘stickle-back’ or ‘ Jacksharp’ order ; but 
the turncock presiding asserted firmly, and with a touch of pride 
(after I had declined his offer to collect a large number), that they 
were ‘real, proper fishes’—‘and wick enough too!” Among 
memories of far-off ponds in which our first rude lines were cast, 
the bold stickle-back, captive in his jar, is a delightful and familiar 
figure ; but the apparition of his lively little body wriggling among 
the granite setts about a tram line is strange and out of place, and 
prompts the unpleasant thought that shoals of these wanderers 
may exist within the mains below, and being overtaken with 
