THE MICROSCOPE. 309 
According to the reports from Washington, fifty per cent. more 
rain has fallen this season than ever before. And according to 
the statistics of the Pennsylvania Weather Bureau for the 
months of June and July, enough rain has fallen during those 
eight weeks to form a lake a thousand miles square and about 
thirty-five feet deep; while during the great downpour of the 
three days that brought disaster to Johnstown, the weight of the 
rain that decended on the mountain plateaus of Northern Penn- 
sylvania is said to have amounted to nearly seven billion tons. 
What chance has a Rotifer or an Infusorian in a struggle with 
such raging torrents as the ditches have been this season? And 
how could an Alge or a Diatom keep its hold to any support 
when the usually quiet pond was foaming over its banks? The 
larger and stronger plants to which these microscopic creatures 
commonly cling have had few such guests this summer. The 
rushing waters have lashed and scoured them. It has been an 
uncommon sight in the locality where these lines are written, to 
see this season those little patches of green Alge which are 
usually so abundant. The water surfaces have not been still 
long enough to allow them to grow. That the Rotifera, and the 
Infusoria, and the Entomostraca, and all other attractive deni- 
zens of the waters have been as abundant as ever, there is no 
doubt; but how is it possible to capture an inyisible creature 
when a torrent is hurrying it away? The collector of pond life 
needs still places, and he is pleased when he finds a pool partly 
dried by the werm air, yet shaded by the trees, for there the 
little creatures are compelled to congregate, and there a few dips 
of the collecting bottle is sure to be rewarded with a rich store 
of all the worms, the larvee, all the creeping and swimming mic- 
roscopic things that give pleasure to the student of pond life. 
It is to be hoped that others in another part of the country 
have fared better, for we of the Eastern United States have not 
fared well. It is not difficult to imagine that the little creatures, 
some of whose ancestors may have met their death on the mic- 
roscope stage, martyrs to science, may have thriven as never 
before, as an abundance of food particles has been swept along 
with them. It may not have been they who have been annoyed. 
They have had a wider field and an enlarged experience. It is 
we who have been after them with bottles and dippers and grap- 
pling hooks, who have reason to regret. It would be an agree- 
