of this as we left because of the blow. All of our beaches were 

 piled up high with it and this was also true in the marshes. The 

 beaches will be pretty much scoured off later, but in the marshes 

 it stays and has really added quite a lot. 



Chapman: Yes, that is true. 



Redfield: I remember the Cape Cod marshes particularly at Barnstable 



for 20 years before the Zostera climax and it is my impression 

 that there is probably at least a foot between the highest eleva- 

 tion of the Zostera and the lowest to which the Spartina will grow. 

 In other words undoubtedly the Zostera would help the accumula- 

 tion of mud in low areas. 



Chapman: There is an intervening period when you've got to wait for the mud 



to accumulate. 



Redfield: Yes, that is the point. That's geology and not biology. 



Chapman: But the Zostera will give you the first initial buildup anyhow. 



Vallentyne: In those cases where you have found some of the algae buried to 



depths in the sediments, are those buried by the accumulation 

 of the sediment or is it conceivable that they could have been 

 worked down in by the action of currents that might move through 

 the sediments ? 



Moul: 



I talked to Dr. Turner about the movement of material on the 

 Barnstable mud flats and he seemed to think that when the tide 

 came in there was a certain amount of movement of the mater- 

 ial on the surface, but then there is also a paper by Faure- 

 Fremiet on the migration of Hantzschia in Barnstable mud in 

 which it comes up at low tide and goes down as the tide comes 

 back. If you get to the Barnstable mud flats just as the tide is 

 coming off, the mud flat is one color. The longer you stay you 

 begin to see brown stains. Ji you take a sample of this stain it 

 turns out to be diatoms. I have found very few Hantzschia but 

 have found species of Navicula. I think that this movement is 

 more or less protective. Dr. Pomeroy and 1 were talking about 

 it yesterday, conjecturing about it. If they go down in the sand 

 when the tide comes on they are less liable to be washed away 

 from the particular locality. This seems teleological, I suppose, 

 but I think that this is a movement of the diatoms themselves. I 

 collected diatoms on the mud of Delaware Bay. Dr. Nelson was 

 very much interested in these long masses of gelatinous coatings 

 on the mud of Delaware Bay. To determine what they were 1 

 collected a jar full of them, and of course by the time I got back 

 to New Brunswick everything was mixed up in the jar. Letting 

 the jar stand on the windowsill for a few hours all of the diatoms 



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