"THE WATER WITH EYES."

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 168, 15 July 1916, Page 20

"THE WATER WITH EYES."

We are all delighted at the result of the little naval "scrap" on Lak? Tanganyika, which is an excellent beginning and, we hope, pTeeage for the operations of General Smuts isi '.Jerman East Africa. We wonder, however (fays the London "Globe"), how many people know that this great lake is unique among all the bodies of fresh water in the world. The natives call it "the water with eyes" because it contains immense numbers of the only freshwater jelly-fish known to science. The creature is found nowhere els?, and it* existence in Tanganyika is one of the outstanding puzzles of natural history. To account for it the geologists have had to come to the rescue of the naturalists and have devised a theory undo? which Tanganyika was once an arm of the pea. Apparently the water changed so slowly from salt to fresh that thj jelly-fish were able to adapt themselves to the new conditions and have lived there for ages in peace and dignity until Briton and German came to disturb their calm. It seema that Africa is a newish sort of continent as it exists at present, and U even yet not quite finished, for Lake Tchad, which also was once eeawattr, has yet not completely dried up. Au Africa with the Sahara covered wiui water and Tanganyika an arm of tho sea would he rather a shock for modem geographers. j