XLVIII. OCCURRENCE OF LIVING ORGANISMS IN ARTESIAN WATER. 
THE QUESTION oF THE OCCURRENCE or LIVING 
ORGANISMS In THE ARTESIAN WATERS. 
By Professor W. A. HASWELL, M.A., D.Sc., F.B.S., 
[Read before the Engineering Section of the Royal Society of N. S. Wales, 
July 20, 1903. ] 
THE occurrence of living organisms in the artesian waters 
of Australia is, when the subject is regarded from an a 
priori standpoint, a matter of high probability. Numerous 
organisms, many of them by no means of the lowest grade, 
have been found to flourish in water of springs the temper- 
ature of which is much higher than that of the water 
issuing from most of the artesian bores. In hot springs in 
Italy it has been found that life of various kinds is fairly 
abundant, even when the temperature of the water 
approaches 40° C.’ Nor is there anything in the nature or 
amount of the mineral salts in solution in the water that 
would interfere with such a development. Moreover, in 
Texas, and in Algeria’ a variety of animal organisms— 
molluscs, crustaceans, fishes, and amphibians—have actu- 
ally been obtained in the water issuing from bores tapping 
artesian basins. 
The animals that have been found hitherto in artesian 
waters have in a good many cases proved distinct from any 
of the forms occurring in the surface waters ; so that some- 
thing more is involved than the mere chance passage of a 
larval fish or river-crab through crevices into the subter- 
ranean reservoirs of the artesian basin: there must be a 
1 Issel— Atti Accad. Sci. Torino, xxxv., 1900, and xxxvi., 1901, as 
quoted in Année Biologique, v. 
* Les Forages Artésiens de la Province de Constantine (Algérie). 
Résumé des travaux exécutés de 1856 41889. Par M. Jus. Constantine, 
1890. Iam indebted to the courtesy of Mr. J. W. Boultbee for the oppor- 
tunity of consulting this report. | 
