Republican Herald

MISCELLANEOUS.

On the existence of Animalculæ in Snow.

The following account was sent by Dr. J. E. Mure in a letter to Dr. Silliman.—'When the winter had made considerable progress without much frost, there happened a heavy fall of snow. Apprehending that I might not have an opportunity of filling my house with ice, I threw in snow, perhaps enough to half fill it. There was afterwards severely cold weather, and I filled the remainder with ice. About August the waste & consumption of the ice brought us down to the snow, when it was discovered that a glass of water, which was cooled with it, contained hundreds of animalcules. I then examined another glass of water out of the same pitcher, and with the aid of a microscope, before the snow was put into it, found it perfectly clear and pure: the snow was then thrown into it, and on solution the water exhibited the same phenomenon—hundreds of animalcules visible to the naked eye with acute attention, and, when viewed through the microscope, resembling most diminutive shrimps, and wholly unlike the eels discovered in the acetous acid, were seen in the full enjoyment of animated nature.

I caused holes to be dug in several parts of the mass of the snow in the ice house and to the centre of it, and in the most unequivocal and repeated experiments had similar results; so that my family did not again venture to introduce the snow ice into the water they drank, which had been a favorite method, but used it as an external refrigerant for the pitcher.

These little animals may class with the amphibia which have cold blood, and are generally capable, in a low temperature, of a torpid state of existence.—Hence their icy immersion did no violence to their constitution, and the possibility of their revival by heat is well sustained by analogy; but their generation, their parentage, and their extraordinary transmigration, are to me subjects of profound astonishment.'

It strikes us there is much good sense in the annexed article from the N. Y. American :—