1894 THE MICROSCOPE. 53 



wliicli will be found in the bulletin of the association, 

 vol. 1, page 11. Subsequently with the Hon. E. G. Squier 

 and Dr. A. Habel, who had visited the celebrated Chin- 

 cha Islands, and there observed facts which confirmed 

 the present writer's notions with regard to it, he again 

 brought out the subject before the public at a meet- 

 ing of the New York Lyceum of Natural History, held 

 May 1, 1871. (Proceedings Lyceum Natural History, N. 

 Y., vol. 1, page 224). Therein it is shown that guano is 

 most likely not the excrements of birds and other similar 

 animals deposited upon the islands and main land, but it 

 is the result of the accumulation of the bodies of animals 

 and plants, for the most part minute ones, Bacillaria- 

 cese or Diatomacese making up the most part of the mass 

 and subsequently upheaved from the bottom of the ocean 

 by volcanic agency. 



Dr. Habel who had visited the Chincha Islands for the 

 purpose of studying geologically the mode of formation 

 of the guano, said it presented itself as strata looking as 

 if it had been laid down beneath water, and the upper- 

 most portion was of a different character entirely. The 

 strata are white and yellow varying in shade and thick- 

 ness. The dip of the strata varies from five to fifteen 

 degrees. The present writer said he brought the matter 

 before the public first at a meeting of the American 3Ii- 

 croscopical Society in 1869, and had been fifteen years 

 studying it as bearing upon the origin of certain infuso- 

 rial earths which occur on the Pacific Coast as at Mon- 

 terey and Los Angeles, and which extend into the State 

 of Washington. These strata or shales are light in color 

 being nearly white or salmon colored and contain the re- 

 mains of Bacillariacese or DiatomacesB and Polycistina. 

 Along with these shells there is asphaltum present. But 

 this is present also in Infusorial Earths at other points, 

 as at Trinidad. The California State Greological Survey 

 called the strata bituminous shales. Guano is not found 



