BIOLOGY. 327 



unable to find a scientific assistant who could take part in the actual 

 investigation of new material. A considerable portion of the year 

 has necessarily been given to meeting some of these demands for cooper- 

 ative work, and certain plans for individual study, made a year ago, 

 have had to be postponed. 



A good deal of attention has nevertheless been given to one line of 

 independent study, that of the marine diatoms of the Philippine Islands. 

 A large number of new dredgings has been examined and has resulted 

 in finding about 30 more new species, as well as increasing the list of 

 species already named. This has made it necessary to postpone the 

 publication of "The Diatoms of the Philippine Islands" until these 

 additional species have been photomicrographed and described; but 

 the greater completeness of the report will fully justify the delay. 



A series of specimens from the fossil diatom beds of Lompoc, Cali- 

 fornia, has been examined at the request of Dr. David Starr Jordan, 

 of Stanford University. The original purpose of this study was to 

 see if changes or peculia,rities in the diatom flora at different levels 

 would throw light on the cause of a sudden destruction of immense 

 numbers of herring, the fossil remains of which constitute a narrow 

 stratum about 900 feet above the floor of this great deposit. The 

 Lompoc bed has a depth of something over 1,400 feet and an area 

 approximating 12 square miles. The herring, to which Dr. Jordan has 

 given the name Xyne grex, were all adults and evidently had all been 

 killed at the same time, as then- carbonized remains are compacted into 

 one naiTow layer. The cause of this simultaneous slaughter of such 

 a large quantity of fish must have been an exceptional one; and as the 

 material in which their remains are embedded is pm-e diatomaceous 

 earth, a record of the holocaust was sought for in the diatom 

 layers, especially those adjacent to the Xyiie grex stratum. In order 

 to avoid any unconscious bias in interpreting such evidence as a study 

 of the diatoms might afford, the literature on the subject was not 

 consulted until after the research had been made. 



The Lompoc bed is a marine deposit, fairly rich in species, and made 

 up almost wholly of plankton diatoms. It is remarkably free from 

 sand, clay, or organic detritus, showmg that its material was not trans- 

 ported to its place of deposit by rapid or turbulent currents. The 

 absence of any fresh-water species proved that no streams or rivers 

 emptied into the basin. The species found were characteristic of 

 northern latitudes and indicated that the waters had come from a 

 coastal current from the north. The presence of a large number of 

 abnormal and misshapen diatoms in the Xyne grex layer and the layers 

 mmediately above it was evidence that the waters were increasing 

 in salinity, probably as the result of evaporation. These and other 

 indications led to the surmise that the herring represented a large 



