REMINISCENCES OF A WHALE HUNT AT GOOLE. 39 
they stank so terribly that he could not get them as far as the 
manure works, so he took the lighter into the river, and put the 
carcases over the side. We heard of some of them being left 
high and dry on the bank; passers-by knew where they were for 
some time after! Thus ended our whale hunt. 
On a previous occasion there were no fewer than forty-five 
bottle-nosed whales stranded on Whitton Middle Sand. These 
sands are frequently left dry at low tide, and the whales had been 
stranded as the water receded. The whales in this instance were 
taken to Hull. 
DiaToMS ON THE Mup OF THE River HuLit.—When the 
tide is down, and the river runs swiftly and sullenly between a 
dreary expanse of mud on either bank, you may notice here and 
there on the surface of the mud, and on wooden piles and old 
walls left bare by the falling waters, patches and streaks of 
variously shaded brown ; here, dark chocolate, there, yellowish 
ochre, and many an intermediate tint. To the uninitiated these 
mean nothing at all, mere stains or variations in the colour of the 
mud. But the microscopist knows that they indicate the presence 
of a host of tiny plants, called diatoms, whose brownish coloured 
endochrome causes the stainon the mud. Carefully remove some 
of this stain and place it beneath the microscope, and a 
multitude of beautiful forms is revealed. If the endochrome is 
destroyed by boiling in acid, the siliceous skeleton remains—a 
thing of beauty, of wondrous delicacy, wrought as it were in clear 
crystal. The following are the contents of such a gathering made 
by me in the neighbourhood of Haworth Hall. The first glance 
showed the predominant form to be Pleurosigma scalprum, a 
sigmoid, or slightly S-shaped diatom of extreme minuteness. But 
there were larger and more beautiful forms, notably, Campylodiscus 
clypeus, a sub-orbicular disc, curiously contorted, almost into a 
saddle shape, and marked with hyaline radii. Also Azdacodiscus 
Kittonii, a perfectly regular disc with beautiful dotted markings 
over its surface, and four projections near the margin, which look 
like smaller discs on the surface of the larger. These two forms 
were, as far as I know, previously unrecorded for this district. 
There were also other discoid forms as beautiful, if not so rare: 
Actinocyclus undulatus, a shield marked with the appearance of 
radiations like the spokes of a wheel—an appearance due to the 
difference in focus of the undulations of the surface; and 
Coscinodiscus radiatus, a circular shield pitted with minutely 
sculptured rows of dots. Truly there is a world of unsuspected 
beauty in the mud of the River Hull. “Dirt more admirable than 
was dreamed,” as Walt Whitman says.—R. H. PHILIP. 
