246 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [July 



ing together a compact felt, bleached by the sun on the 

 upper surface. It included some fallen tree leaves and 

 some blades of glass. Among the confervse lie scattered 

 a number of the siliceous infusoria, he calls them, but we 

 know them to be Bacilliaria or Diatomacefie. There were 

 sixteen diiferent sorts or species, belonging to six genera. 

 There were also three sorts of infusoria with membran- 

 ous shields, and dried specimens of another kind. The 

 bacillaria and infusoria were not completely dry and 

 could be revived. Some years ago, Ehrenberg submitted 

 to the Academy of Sciences in Berlin, apiece of natural 

 wadding or flannel a foot and a half square which con- 

 sisted of bacillariace^e, called them infusoria and con- 

 ferrf^, which were found to the extent of several hundred 

 square feet, near Sabor, in Siberia, which formed after 

 an inundation. This substance was analagous to the 

 "meadow leather" which I have already alluded to, but 

 it is far more surprising from its occurrence in such an 

 immense mass. The flannel in this case, like the former, 

 was chiefly composed of unramified branches of a con- 

 ferva which he called conferva rivularis, interwoven with 

 fifteen species of bacillariaceae. 



On January 31, 1637, a great mass of paper-like black 

 substance was said to fall with a violent snow storm from 

 the atmosphere, near the village of Randen in Courland. 

 This meteoric substance was described and figured in 

 1636-1638 and was considered by M. Von Grrotthus, who 

 after a chemical analysis decided it to be a meteoric 

 mass. M. Von Bergelius also analyized it and could not 

 discover the nickel said to be contained in it. Then Von 

 Grotthus revoked his opinion and said he was mistaken 

 as to the nickel. Nickel made it meteoric of course. It 

 is mentioned in Chladni's work on meteors and appears 

 as an aerophyte in Nees Von Esenbeek's valuable appen- 

 pix to R. Brown's " Botan Schriften." Ehrenberg has 



