156 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [Jun 



We may call anything a Pinnularia but that does not 

 prove it is not a Navicula, and if we know it as Navicula 

 viridis that does not tell us all there is about it. No time 

 is misspent in studying anything. We study evil to know 

 what is to gain. So studying the Bacillaria we learn 

 what there is to gain about them and others. We study 

 the life of Protista to learn what is the life of man. We 

 study the Bacillaria not merely to learn what they are 

 called, and to study them a great many hours must be 

 spent using the best optical instruments for viewing them 

 under various modes of vision and also we must use the 

 knowledge acquired in various departments of science. 

 The student of Bacillaria must be a mathematician, a 

 chemist, a zoologist and a botanist, and last of all a geolo- 

 gist, to understand the various phases of life which they 

 present. And to study the Bacillaria we must study them 

 not merely view them a few times as beautiful things but 

 as pieces of the framework of nature. That is to say, we 

 must spend hours and days and weeks and months at one 

 object, Navicula viridis for instance, and with the best 

 objectives that can be obtained. So I say that life is short 

 in which to study the Bacillaria and he knows most about 

 them who has thus studied through hours of patient 

 watching and constant viewing. Do not then condemn the 

 student of the Bacillaria, the hunter of diatoms, the 

 counter of lines on an angulata, for he is the student of 

 the little things, the minute atomies. 



Report of Moses C. White, M. D., Microscopist, • 



To the Medico-Legal Society. 



In reviewing the progress of microscopic research for 

 medico-legal purposes, the past year, it is interesting to no- 

 tice,first, improvements in the microscope itself. Although 

 the microscopic objective, by the application of the Jena 

 optical glass, has attained almost an ideal perfection for 



