356 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION D. 



radium emanation or not, at least do not appear to be well known, 

 as is indicated by a discussion taking place at the Linnean Society 

 of New South Wales in April, 1909, and in the Sydney newspapers 

 in May, 1909, with reference to the fish found in the waterhole formed 

 by the Corella bore. It seems certain that one of the effects now to 

 be described (No. 2) is identical with one there discussed in New 

 South Wales. The effects resulting under certain conditions from 

 the use of artesian water are four in number, and will be first stated 

 and then discussed : — 



(1) Death of fish confined near the outflow. 



(2) Protrusion of eyeball — pop-eye. 



(3) Death of trout eggs before hatching. 



(4) Trouble in the yolk sac stage, known locally as " blue 



swelling." 



(1) It was soon found that the Christchurch water was fatal 

 to a large percentage of fish confined near the outflow of the well. 

 Thus, of seven yearling trout placed in the " sand box " with the 

 artesian water running out of the pipe directly on to the bottom of 

 the box and flowing out at the top, one died in three days, two more 

 in four days, two more in five days, whilst the remaining two were 

 alive after seven days, when they were removed in an apparently 

 healthy condition. Emanation content, 197. 



x\s the conditions of life in the galvanised iron box, with a 

 strong stream of water running through it, were certainly not 

 comfortable, a further lot of ten trout were confined in a concrete 

 tank, into which the water flowed from the Museum well sand box, 

 at the same time eight yearling trout were put into the sand box. 

 The fish died in large numbers and in quite a short time in both 

 places of confinement, and there can be no doubt that this is a 

 general result of confining fish in close proximity to the outflow 

 from the well. 



(2) Protrusion of the Eyeball. — In fish which survived 

 more than seven or eight daj^s in confinement close to the outflow, it 

 was noticed that the eye began to protrude, and the advent of this 

 disease, known as " pop-eye," seemed to prevent death from super- 

 vening, as on several occasions a fish which survived out of a batch 

 of seven or eight was kept for many days still in the same place 

 until its eyes became so bad that it was considered that the experi- 

 ment had proceeded far enough, and the fish was killed. The 

 disease was, I consider, most likely the cause of the eyeless fish being 

 found in the water flowing from the New South Wales bore, as the 

 eyes of several fish kept in the Christchurch waters were in such a 

 state that a slight knock would have taken them out of the sockets, 

 and as these fish were practically blind, had they been kept a little 

 longer or been in a place where the}' would be likely to bump 

 against rough obstacles, the}^ would almost certainh- have lost their 



