November 3, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



501 



isting journals will not proceed in this direction 

 until such guarantees are forthcoming. 



J. R. Schramm 

 Nationai, Reseakch Council, 

 Washington, D. C. 



DOES NITRIFICATION OCCUR IN 

 SEA WATER 



Despite the meager, observational and ex- 

 perimental data which are available on the sub- 

 ject, the idea of the occurrence and activity of 

 nitrifying bacteria in the opea sea is widely 

 prevalent among bacteriologists and botanists. 

 This idea is based, in part, on the reasoning 

 that ocean water should contain the bacteria 

 discharged into it by the sediments and the 

 drainage watei-s from terrestrial sources; more 

 particularly, however, it is an outgrowth of 

 certain studies which have been made in recent 

 years on the bacterial flora of sea water which, 

 as above indicated, are far from exhaustive and 

 satisfying. For example, Thomsen^ has dis- 

 covered nitrite and nitrate producing bacteria 

 in the ooze of the bottom of Kiel Fjord. It 

 has also been reported that nitrite and nitrate 

 forming bacteria have been found in the slime 

 at the bottom of the Bay of Naples. In both 

 cases, however, it is definitely pointed out that 

 the samples studied were obtained from near . 

 land surfaces. Moreover, Thomsen failed to 

 discover the nitrite or nitrate forming organ- 

 isms in sea water or in the plankton or the 

 fixed algie. In com in en ting on the studies of 

 Keding- and Keutner^ on nitrogen-fixing bac- 

 teria of the sea. Drew* made the following 

 statement which shows him to have been con- 

 fused on the subject of two distinct groups of 



1 Thomsen, E. : " Ueber das Vorkommen von 

 Nitrobakterieu im Meere, " Wiss. Meeresunters^ 

 Vol. XI, Kiel. 



2 Keding, M. : "Weitere Untersuchuugen. liber 

 stioksto££bindende Bakterien, ' ' Wiss. Meerestm- 

 ters, Vol. IX, Kiel. 



3 Keutner, J. : " Ueber das Vorkommen und 

 Verbreitung stickstoffibindende Bakterien im 

 Meere," Ibid., Vol. IX, Kiel. 



■i Drew, G. Harold : ' ' On the Precipitation of 

 Calcium Carbonate in the Sea, etc." Fapei's 

 from Tortugas Laboratory, Carnegie Inst., Wash., 

 Vol. 5, 1914. 



bacteria wholly different from each other in all 

 respects. He said, "The existence of nitrify- 

 ing bacteria which are capable of absorbing 

 and combining with the free nitrogen of the 

 air'' and eventually give rise to nitrates, has 

 been shown by Keding and Keutner, but these 

 have so far only been found in the bottom 

 close to shore or apparently living in symbiosis 

 with algaa or plankton organisms." Later on, 

 however, Issatchenko,'' whose original papers 

 are not available to me, claims to have found 

 nitrifying bacteria in the Gulf Stream near 

 Ekaterininsk 72° N. He observed, however, 

 that tlie presence of such bacteria in the Arctic 

 Seas is still unproved. Issatehenko made this 

 statement eight years after having stated, as 

 reported in a brief note,^ that he had discov- 

 ered a nitrifying bacterium in Arctic sea water. 

 With these unsatisfactory results before him, 

 Berkeley* decided, in the course of other 

 studies on marine bacteria, to make some tests 

 for a possible nitrifying power of sea water. 

 He inoculated 2 per cent, solutions of ammo- 

 nium sulfate in sea water with samples of the 

 sea water to be studied. He does not state 

 how much inoculum was employed, nor any- 

 thing else relative to the technique of the ex- 

 periments, but the result was that even after 

 three months none of the cultures showed even 

 traces of nitrite or nitrate. 



In connection with a series of critical studies 

 on the possible connection of bacteria with 

 CaCOa precipitation in sea water, which are to 

 appear in the reports of the Department of 

 Marine Biology of the Carnegie Institution of 

 Washington, th« writer of this note, unaware 

 of Berkeley's work which appeared at about 

 that time, determined to make some tests for 

 the possible nitrifying power of sea water. 



5 Italics mine. 



<< Issatehenko, B. L. : " Nitrogen Fixation, 

 Nitrification, Denitrifieation and Production of 

 Hydrogen Sulphide by Bacteria in the Arctic 

 Ocean." Rev. Agr. Expts., Vol. 17, pp. 175-9. 

 Cited in Bull. Agr. Intelligence, 7, 1753 (1916). 



■? Issatehenko, B. L. Cited from Centr. Baht. 

 etc., 2th Abt., No. 13-14, p. 430, 1908. 



s Berkeley, Cyril: "A Study of Marine Bac- 

 teria, Straits of Georgia, B. C. " Trans. Roy. 

 Soc. Can., Vol. 13, p. 15. ■ 



