120 
IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 
One of us called attention to this fact some years ago, * 
but as early as 1879, Miquel, f found that the number of 
organisms increased very perceptibly after it had been 
kept a certain length of time. The following quotation 
from FranklandJ indicates a final decline. “Miquel has 
extended these observations in an interesting manner by 
keeping a bottle of river Seine water shut up for nine years, 
and whilst at the time of collection 4,800 bacteria per c.c. 
were found, at the end of the nine years there were only 
220 discoverable. Again, a sample of Yanne water, con- 
taining at the time of collection 66 organisms per c.c., at 
the.end of ten years was found to be absolutely sterile. 7 ’ 
Cramer § gives the following increase: 
Hours and days during which 
the water was preserved. 
0 hours 
24 hours 
3 days 
8 days 
17 days 
80 days 
Number of micro-organisms 
in 1 c.c. of water. 
143 
12,457 
328,543 
233,452 
17,436 
2,500 
The bacteriologist is often asked to examine water that 
is shipped from long distances. He is asked to make a 
report on the sanitary conditions of the water. This water 
is frequently collected in ordinary bottles, simply rinsed. 
Of course, it goes without saying that such analyses can 
not be reliable. A case in point of the undoubted multi- 
plication of bacteria may be found in spring water from 
Canton, northeastern Iowa. The spring water is said to be 
unusually good, the number of bacteria found in the water 
was very large, the average in different media was 22,000 
per c.c. 
Sometimes water is packed in ice and sent for study. This 
is not always a desirable method for shipping water. Thus, 
Jordan found that three samples of river water packed 
in ice for 48 hours, fell off from 535,000 to 54,500; from 412,- 
*Pammel, L. H. — Proc. Ia. Accd. Sci. 1:493. 1893. 
+ Miquel, Manuel — Pratique d’analyse bacteriologique des aux. Paris, 1891. p. 12. 
X Frankland. —Micro-organisms of Water. 219. 
$ Cramer.— Die Wasserversorgung von Zurich und ihr Zusammenhang mit der 
Typhu«epideme des Jahres 1884. Zurich, 1885: 91. 
|| Winslow, C. E. A. —Jr. New Eng. Water Works Assoc. XV : 461. 
