•THEAIOmCOPE- 



:ated 



Vol. XII. 



WASHINGTON, D. C, NOVEMBEK, 1892. 



No. 11. 



DIATOMOLOGY. 



By K. M. CUNNINGHAM, 



MOBILE, ALA. 



All science may be said to be both evolutionary and progres- 

 sive, partaking somewhat of the nature of organized beings ; pass- 

 ing from the simple relation to the complex in structure onwards 

 without limit. This corollary is preliminary to an exposition 

 of its application to the science of the study of the Diatomaceae. 

 As far as the writer's experience has gone, one branch of science, 

 classed under botany and pursued almost exclusively with the 

 use of the microscope, has not had its aggregate field of work 

 crystallized under the distinctive title of a science, but has 

 mostly been designated by some subordinate term. My object is 

 to shovv', or point out, the justice of grouping together all the allied 

 and auxiliary researches and methods of study of the DiatomacCce 

 under the title of " diatomology," which in its broader defini- 

 tion w^ould mean to comprise all that appertains to the study of 

 diatoms in whatever manner undertaken. Therefore, accumu- 

 lated experience suggests that the Diatomaceae can become the 

 basis of one of the most impressive, instructive, and engaging 

 branches of pure science that may occupy the attention of the hu- 

 man mind. 



Firstly, on account of its power in gratifying the purely nat- 

 ural impulse inherent in the mind to be impressed with whatever 

 is beautiful in nature. 



Secondly, from its being a legitimate line of research, inde- 

 pendent of the merely beautiful, practical, or pecuniary, as 

 science in general takes equal cognizance of the ugly, horrid, or 



