BACTERIAL CONTENTS OF VAKIOUS WATERS 85 



38 in 1 c.c. ; on another occasion, when the temperature 

 was about —11-1° C, 293 (mean of two experiments); 

 again, about a week later, the temperature being about 

 — 12"2° C, 154 (mean of two experiments); and during 

 a snow-storm, temperature — 3*9° C, 301 were found 

 in 1 c.c. (mean of two experiments). Schmelck ^ has 

 examined the snow from a glacier in Norway at a 

 height of 1,800 to 2,000 metres above the sea, and found 

 2 bacteria and 2 moulds per 1 c.c. But the same sample 

 yielded, after standing for five or six hours in a warm 

 room, from 70 to 80 per 1 c.c. This points of course 

 to an extensive multiplication of the organisms taking 

 place after the melting of the snow. 



Ice. — An elaborate series of investigations on the 

 bacterial contents of ice has been carried out in Berlin 

 by C. Fraenkl.^ Fraenkl examined the ice supplied by 

 one of the ice companies in Berlin, and derived from 

 the Eummelsburg Lake, situated above Berlin, and 

 forming an expansion of the river Spree. This ice is 

 usually collected when it has reached a thickness of 

 from 15 to 20 cm., and is stored in a large cellar. 

 Periodical examinations were made of this ice from the 

 middle of February 1886 until the middle of April. It 

 was found how exceedingly variable were the numbers 

 present per c.c, ranging from 21 to as many as 8,800. 



The multiplication of the bacteria which may take 

 place after the melting of the ice and standing of the ice- 

 water is also very striking. Thus a piece of ice was 

 melted and immediately examined, and found to 

 contain 1,020 organisms per 1 c.c. ; this ice-water was 

 allowed to stand for eleven days, and was then found 

 to contain as many as 220,000 per 1 c.c. 



^ Centralhlatt filr Bahteriologie, vol. iv. p. 545. 



^ ' Ueber den Bacteriengehalt des Eises,' Zeitschrift filr Hygiene^ 

 vol. i. p. 302, 1886. 



