300 NATURAL SCIENCE [November 
in agreement with several of Eimer’s conclusions—the inheritance of 
acquired characters and the small influence of natural selection in 
the origin of species. His trenchant criticisms of the statements 
and reasonings by which Eimer supported his conclusions are there- 
fore all the more weighty. 
Tue ORIGIN OF DIATOMACEOUS EARTHS IN NEW JERSEY 
THE lacustrine sedimentary deposits of Weequahick Lake, Newark, 
New Jersey, have been long considered as fresh water deposits of 
diatomacee, Professor Arthur M. Edwards has been recently 
studying these deposits as represented in the valley of the river 
Passaic, and in the clay there, which is three feet thick, has found 
a mixture of marine and fresh water diatoms. He also finds 
numerous kettle-holes and deposits of a peaty matter all of which 
contain the diatomaceous earth. From this he concludes “ that the 
whole country in North America, and most likely in Europe also, 
was covered by a fresh-water sea, derived from the melting ice at 
the period when icebergs made their appearance, and that the 
temperature of this sea was O° C. (32° F.), because that is the 
temperature most congenial to the bacillarias; and the diatoma- 
ceous clays described above were laid down as fresh-water deposits 
from this sea during the iceberg period.” The paper forms pp. 
103-107 of a Society which is apparently ashamed of its name, for 
that nowhere appears on the excerpt. 
THE PERSISTENCE OF SPECIFIC FORMS 
In the above paper is a remark that all the forms noted are of the 
same kind as are found in various parts of the world; while in a 
brief note by the same author, and published so long ago as March 
1897 in the American Monthly Microscopical Journal, we read 
with reference to some “Tuscarora” soundings: “The same forms 
are to be found in the Neocene of California whenever it has been 
examined, from Crescent City in Del Norte county on the north 
to a spot about forty miles south of the southern limit in Southern 
California, that is to say into Mexico. They are the same in the 
infusorial earth of the Atlantic Coast of North America, and like- 
wise in South America when it has been detected at Payta and 
Mejillones in Peru. In North America it is known as Miocene 
territory and is seen at Atlantic City in New Jersey, at Richmond 
in Virginia, at various points in Maryland, as at Nottingham, and 
at Tampa Bay in Florida. It is likewise known at Oran in Africa, 
at Moron in Spain, at Mors in Denmark, at Catanisetta in Sicily, at 
Simbirsk in Russia, and at Senz Peter in Hungary. Besides, it is 
known at Netanai in Japan and Oamaru in New Zealand.” 
“ And what does this bring us to? We have to compare the 
