MICROSCOPY. 443 
OrGanisms IN Cutcaco Hyprant Water.—The “Lens” publishes 
an interesting note on the subject by H. H. Babcock of Chicago. 
While the Chicago river flowed into Lake Michigan, pouring into 
it a slow current of almost stagnant water saturated with organic 
matter, the hydrant water used in the city, taken from the lake at 
a point two miles from the shore and where the water is forty feet 
deep, contained an abundance, though a greatly varying quantity, 
of organisms, such as diatoms, etc. When the current in the river 
was reversed, so as to flow from the lake, the vegetable and animal 
forms mostly disappeared from the hydrant water; and the im- 
‘proved sanitary condition of the city, generally attributed to the 
absence of the former noxious effluvia from the river, may be due 
in part at least to the increased purity of the drinking water from 
the lake. The writer at first suspected that the water of the river 
had previously directly contributed the organisms found in the 
water from the “crib,” but afterward was led to conclude that the 
change in the direction of the river only acted by changing the 
direction of the currents from other sources in the lake, thereby 
leaving the crib in purer water than before. Much more investiga- 
tion of this kind ought to be immediately accomplished in view of 
the growing tendency, if not the imminent necessity, of supplying 
to our cities water from lakes and large rivers. 
Record or New Funer.—E. C. Howe of New Baltimore, N. 
Y., has recently discovered and described several new species of 
Fungi as follows :— Uncinula luculenta, U. Americana, Micros- 
‘Phoera sparsa, M. finitima, Pestalozzia Zabriskiei, P. insidens, and 
Phragmidium fallax. 
„Ponura Scares. — American microscopists experience great 
difficulty in obtaining a satisfactory supply of these objects. The 
English Journals are agitating the same subject, and there seems 
to be some mystery as to the source of the familiar “test” scales. 
Mr. McIntyre suggests, not confidently, that they may be devel- 
ped upon the common Lepidocyrtus curvicollis late in life. Mr. 
Joseph Beck states that no amount of age will develop them upon 
the common form of this insect, though they belong to an insect 
entomologically identical with it but having a different habitat: 
ome E.G... of Matlock, recollecting that the late R. Beck told 
him that he found the Podura in the rockwork in his mother’s gar- 
én, hunted for them in a cellar and found a lead-colored species 
Which yielded scales equal to Mr. Beck’s. He admits, however, 
