IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
269 
The following are the results of Miss Nicholas of exam- 
ination of samples, the second after discarding a few pails- 
full. The medium used was ordinary agar. 
DATE. 
Well. 
|pirst pumping. 
Second pumping. 
September 9th 
Lincoln... 
Munn 
460 
240 
3 o 
180 
1,700 
2,800 
330 
230 
20 
170 
1, 600 
6,000 
September 9th 
October 8th 
Budd... 
October 8th 
Lincoln. . . 
Reed 
October 8th 
Kinkade .. 
The Kinkade well is very shallow and the second sample 
was collected after several barrels of water had been 
pumped out, therefore the much greater number of bacteria 
in the second sample may be due to sediment. 
All of the shallow wells examined contained gas-produc- 
ing germs. The Paxton well produced 30 cc. of gas in the fer- 
mentation tube, 10 cc. of which was C0 2 and 20 cc. CH 4 . The 
Reed well produced 100 cc. of gas (40 cc. C0 2 and 60 cc. CH 4 ). 
The water from the Kinkade well produced a very great 
amount of gas. 
The Briley Shallow Well . — In conjunction with Dr. 
Weems and Mr. McKinley on another occasion the writer 
collected samples of the water at the Briley well, and later 
Mr. Faurot also collected this water twice. The second 
time when Mr. Faurot collected these samples we got an 
unusually large number of germs per cubic centimeter. 
That collected by the writer on October 17 had 18,000 and 
that by Mr. Faurot had 6,000. It is worthy of note in this 
connection that the samples collected by myself on October 
17 contained 18,000 germs per cc., that in one of the samples 
collected by Mr. Faurot on October 25, the number of germs 
had diminished very materially, the largest number found 
was 6,000. On October 29 the highest number obtained 
was 125 per cc. 
