254 REV. E. o'meara. 



On DiATOMACE^ from Spitzbergen. By the Rev. E. 

 O'Meara, A.m. With PI. VIIL 



The collections which are the subject of the present paper 

 were made by Rev. A. E. Eaton, who went out to the Arctic 

 Sea in Mr. Leigh-Smith's yacht. They consisted, 1st, of 

 some stones coated with mucor, in which no diatoms were 

 found ; 2nd, of several bottles of various size. Of these a 

 large number had unhappily been broken in the conveyance 

 and the contents lost except the material that remained 

 attached to the surface of the glass. This material was 

 carefully examined, but not a single diatomaceous frustule 

 appeared to requite the labour, so that it may be inferred 

 that no loss was sustained by the casualty. Of the bottles 

 which came uninjured one was rich in forms, the others 

 contributed only a few to the general result, ord, of a large 

 package of a very miscellaneous nature, made up of broken 

 shells, pieces of seaweed, sand, and such like ; its general 

 appearance was not encouraging, nevertheless it yielded 

 forms of sufficient number, variety, and interest, amply to 

 requite the labour of preparation. 



Cleve and Lagerstedt have investigated the diatomacese of 

 Spitzbergen, and favoured us with the result. The latter in 

 his treatise, ' Sotvattens Diatomaceer fran Spetsbergen och 

 Beeren Eiland,' confined to the fresh-Avater forms of the 

 district ; the former in his ' Diatomaceer fran Spetsbergen,' 

 16th Dec, 1867, published in the ' Ofversigt af Kongl. 

 Vetenskaps Akad. Forhandlingar,' Stockholm, 1868, and also 

 in a more recent publication in English, ' On Diatoms from 

 the Arctic Sea,' Stockholm, 1873, in which frequent reference 

 is made to forms from Spitzbergen. 



The gatherings placed in my hands, so far as those are 

 concerned in which diatoms occurred, were exclusively 

 marine, so that I could pursue the track only of Professor 

 Cleve, and that only in respect to the marine forms described 

 by him in the two treatises referred to ; and, considering the 

 limited nature of the available material, with most satisfactory 

 results. 



Cleve calculates the number of diatomaceous species 

 hitherto discovered within the entire range of the Arctic Sea 

 at 181. These Spitzbergen gatherings of Rev. Mr. Eaton 

 yielded no less than 92; of these the following have been 

 noted by Professor Cleve : 



