Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1884 — Ice Worms. [ARTICLE]

Ice Worms.

Not content with discovering many species of ugly animalcule in our drink-ing-water, the scientists propose to fan the opposition against St. John to a fiercer heat by asserting that even the ice with which the Schuylkill water is cooled for drinking swarms with disagreeable worms. At the last meeting of the Academy of Natural Sciences the President, Dr. Joseph Leidy, stated that a member had recently given to him for examination a vial of water obtained by melting ice used for cooling drinking-water. The member who submitted the vial had noticed living wcrms in the sediment of a water-cool-er, but had supposed that they were contained in the water. Upon melting some of the ice, however, the worms were still observed. 'lliese worms, which were from four to six millimeters long and colorless, belong to the same family as the comihon earth worms—the lumbricidae. Their bodies have thirty segments bearing spines. Besides this cheerful discovery, Prof. Leidy found in the vial several dead worms with large ciliated infusorians, vegetable hairs, and other debris. It has been supposed that ice was free from the impurities of the water upon whose surface it was frozen, but this discovery is against that theory.— Philadelphia Pi-ess. About love, Queen Elizabeth of Pkoumania writes: “If one forgives, one loves no longer, for true love knows nothing of forgiveness.’’ “The. jealousy of those who love us is the grandest flattery.” “Man and wife should never cease to do a little courting, now matter how old they may be.”