THE YOUNG SCIENTIST. 
23 
Will it Show the Animalcules in Water ? 
THE first question always asked when a 
beginner is about to buy a microscope 
is, *' How much does it magnify ?" The 
second as invariably is, "Will it show the 
animalcules in water ?" Let us try to an- 
swer the latter question in such a way that 
the young microscopist may have a clear 
idea of what he ought to expect. 
Pure water contains nothing that can be 
seen with any microscope ever made, up to 
the present time; no solid particles, no ani- 
malcules, no minute vegetables, no spores 
or germs. Good water, such as is ordinar- 
ily procured from wells, and such as has 
been obtained by carefully filtering rain or 
river water, contains nothing that is visible 
to any of ttie microscopes ordinarily used 
by our ablest scientific men. Over and 
over again people have brought their in- 
struments to us with the complaint, "My 
microscope is out of order, for I have care- 
fully examined a drop of water with it, and 
I can find nothing!" The microscope was 
all right, but the owner did not know what 
he ought to expect. 
How, then, are we to account for those 
wonderful pictures of "a drop of water," 
which we find in almost every popular book 
on science? Are the animalcules which 
are shown in them mere creatures of the 
imagination, which have no real existence ? 
The creatures ordinarily pictured as *' the 
inhabitants of a drop of water" are in 
almost all cases the inhabitants of stagnant 
pools, and to see very many of them re- 
quires no microscope at all. More than 
this, however, where a so-called drop is 
shown, the book-maker almost always man- 
ages to give what would be the full comple- 
ment of inhabitants for some hundreds of 
drops, not with the intention of deceiving, 
but for the purpose of making his book or 
picture more interesting. 
That these statements in regard to the 
popular pictures and descriptions of a drop 
of water are correct, is easily proved. We 
have before us at the present moment half a 
dozen books in which such pictures are 
found. Selecting one of the most popular 
and interesting — Miss Catlow's ''Drops oi 
Water" — we find four beautiful engrav- 
ings, each showing an imaginary drop of 
water and its inhabitants. But these in- 
habitants can in general only be found 
after the most diligent search, and in 
special localities. We might search the 
water from a dozen ordinary wells before 
we succeeded in finding any of them. Many 
of them can only be found in clear, though 
stagnant pools, while others must be looked 
for in water which contains decaying ani- 
mal and vegetable matter. And of all the 
objects shown in the four "Drops," there 
is not one that cannot be clearly seen with 
a microscope magnifying one hundred di- 
ameters. Even a good hand magnifier, 
such as those now commonly sold in hard 
rubber, and consisting of three lenses, will 
show their outlines and forms, so that they 
can be recognized. It is these objects 
which are usually known as "animal- 
cules," and in general it is much larger 
creatures (water fleas and the larvae of in- 
\ sects, for example) that are exhibited by 
sidewalk showmen under this name. A fav- 
orite subject with such exhibitors are the 
I eels in paste or vinegar. Both these ob- 
i jects, as well as the water- fleas, and even 
I the Volvox Globator, or beautiful "globe 
I animalcule," as it is popularly called, may 
be seen by the naked eye, if properly il- 
luminated. 
We must remember that these minute 
forms of life difi'er as widely in size as do 
the larger animals with which we are more 
familiar. The whale and the minnow do not 
differ more in size than do some of the li v - 
ing creatures which are the subjects of study 
under the microscope, and the largest of 
which are barely visible to the naked eye. 
To see the very smallest animalcules, the 
very beginnings of life, if we may so speak, 
will severely tax the power of the very best 
microscopes. But, on the other hand, any 
good magnifier — such as may be had for a 
couple of dollars — will enable us to see 
hundreds of the most interesting animal- 
cules in water. 
