On Micro-organisms from Ice, &c. By Dr. Maddox. 451 



the original ones ; being rather straighter, the club or pistol-handle 

 shape still very evident, and the rods in somewhat more regular 

 position. From the result of my rough cultivation experiments I 

 am inclined to regard them as Bacilli. A few cultivations were 

 attempted with the pellicle from the water-butt, also from the 

 pan. For instance, I tried to cultivate them in sterilized (i. e. by 

 boiling) normal urine, in sterilized infusion of Liebig extract of 

 meat, upon cold boiled potatoes and the white of hard-boiled egg, 

 without increased temperature beyond that of a tireless room, but 

 with no positive success. Yet eight months later a speck taken 

 from the pellicle, removed with some of the water from the butt at 

 the time of the original observation, carefully kept covered and un- 

 disturbed, and which contained the club-shaped rods in abundance, 

 when placed on sterilized gelatine jelly prepared with infusion of 

 Liebig extract of meat, showed ready growth in the rods, some to 

 more than twice their original length, others multiplying into short 

 joints. In the long ones the characteristic irregularity of outline 

 was apparent in very many. The growth from two minute specks 

 placed one at each end on a layer of the jelly, poured on a scrupu- 

 lously clean slide, soon covered in length the intervening distance 

 of an inch. Curiously, they were more or less arranged in circular 

 groups, the centre being often occupied with a beautiful rosette of 

 some salt crystal, though the individual rods were without regular 

 arrangement, the short rods crossing each other in all directions. 

 After such an interval it would be hazardous to say they were 

 all derived from the club-shaped rods. What I wish to note 

 is, that they grew into longer ones, so to establish their claim to be 

 placed amongst the Bacilli. Later still, in the month of April this 

 year, some of the same pellicle was sown on peptonized gelatine 

 jelly without any evidence of the growth of the rods, and at the 

 same date some placed on hard-boiled white of egg offered no 

 change discernible, though in both cases there were very many 

 minute organisms, as bacteria and micrococci, in Brownian move- 

 ment. I may note that Mr. M. A. Yeeder, U.S.A., found that 

 various infusoria, confervse, &c, in the sediment of the clearest 

 parts of blocks of ice from stagnant water of ponds and canals, 

 would revive when melted, and considers such ice doubtful for 

 drinking purposes. 



I will now pass to some remarks on the micro-organisms found 

 in melted freshly-fallen hail. 



A rather heavy hailstorm happeuing on the 25th of last 

 March, I took the opportunity to collect some of the hail for ex- 

 amination while the storm continued, by dipping a perfectly 

 clean tumbler into a drifted heap lodged in one corner of the 

 window-ledge, without touching anything else ; immediately cover- 

 ing the tumbler with a clean plate of glass, and allowing the hail 



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