" Certe natura nil facit frustra." 



The Croton water, after filtering by the very simple 

 method adopted at the reservoir in the Central Park, 

 contains, in addition to inorganic impurities, such as ox- 

 ide of lead, carbonic acid, soda, magnesia, lime, and so 

 forth, representatives of the vegetable kingdom, with 

 their germs, (spores) and of animal life a Yery extensive 

 group of Invertebrata and their larvae in different stages 

 of development. (See *.) 



Of animalcules visible 1 only under the microscope, I 

 found some of the class Badiolaeia, Amoeba, Actino- 

 phrys, Acanthocystis and Difflugia. These belong to the 

 lowest form of organized life, having no particular shape, 

 consisting only of the so-called Protoplasmaf or Sarcode, 

 whose movements are few and very slow, remaining 

 motionless for ten to fifteen minutes at a time, when it 

 suddenly will elongate itself, contorting itself into all 

 imaginable shapes, though naturally it assumes the glo- 

 bular form. Its food consists of putrescent corpuscles of 

 Algae and of single Algae, (Desmidians, Diatoms, etc.,) 

 which it devours by coming in contact with, and surround- 

 ing it, improvising a stomach in that part of its body 

 which after digestion is ejected. The whole animalcule 

 generally looks like a little transparent mass or jelly-like 

 substance. Their movements and organization can 

 only be distinctly observed under a high power of the 



* Reports on the Water Supply of New York and Brooklyn. — Chemical 

 Report by C. F. Chandler, Ph. D., Prof, of Anal, and Applied Chemistry, 

 Columbia College, and Microscopical Report by Willliam B. Lewis, M D., 

 New York. D. Appleton & Co., 1870. 



f The Protoplasma, according to Huxley, is a compound of Oxygen, 

 Water and Ammoniak, which view, Lionel A. Beal and T. H. Sterling con- 

 tradict, and assert that it is impossible in any way to determine its compo- 

 sition. — Fortniohtly Review. 



