146 



THE AMERICAN MONTHLY 



[August, 



fossil and recent, and by exchanges 

 collected a largely extended variety of 

 material for work. He also made 

 some investigation of the mud of Mo- 

 bile harbor, but his first gatherings 

 were not promising. 



After a time, however, his patience 

 was rewarded by the arrival of a ves- 

 sel from Tampa bay, and upon its 

 chain cables a considerable quantity 

 of the Tampa bay mud was found. 

 Joined at this time by Captain Mc- 

 Neill, both supplied themselves with 

 the material, and Captain McNeill 

 especially applied himself to the task 

 of cleaning it and of studying the best 

 methods of treating it. To this he 

 devoted great patience and labor, with 

 ultimate complete success. Mr. Cun- 

 ningham continued to devote himself 

 more particularly to the search for 

 crude material in ditierent directions. 



Dr. Taylor early joined the two 

 others, and devoted himself to the 

 search for diatomaceous material in 

 Mobile harbor, afterwards extending 

 his researches to other harbors of the 

 Gulf. His methods are presented, in 

 a paper published in this number of 

 the Journal, and will be found to 

 contain many points of interest and 

 some of decided novelty. His reli- 

 ance upon thoroughly ' water-wash- 

 ing' his material, and *• sanding,' /. e., 

 taking the sand out of it, are lessons 

 of experience of a very valuable kind. 

 Even the most valuable muds were 

 found very unpromising at first, and 

 no German laboratory worker covild 

 excel in patience the persistent and 

 careful manipulations to which Dr. 

 Taylor resorted. To eliminate from 

 the material everything which water 

 alone would dissolve or hold in pro- 

 longed suspension was the first prin- 

 ciple. It was followed out in almost 

 innumerable washings, one following 

 the other in indefatigable succession. 

 The washing water was in large 

 quantities, and the process pushed 

 till his experience taught him that 

 nothing more could be accomplished 

 in that way. 



Then came the ' sanding,' a pro- 



cess not new in itself, but applied 

 with new and peculiar persistence. 

 The material, in a shallow dish, being 

 agitated gently and with a circular 

 motion, the sand accumulates in a lit- 

 tle heap, and the diatoms, in a waterv 

 cloud, can be tilted away from the 

 coarser material, and drawn oft' with 

 bulb pipettes or similar instruments. 



The secret is to do this again and 

 again until the separation is reallv 

 complete. The result is not simply 

 to prepare the material for the final 

 acid cleaning. It is worth the trouble 

 for this purpose, but it has the further 

 and greater advantage of furnishing 

 material so ' water- washed' and con- 

 centrated that it is prepared for easy 

 and satisfactory study before acids 

 have touched it. No real student of 

 the DiatomaceiE will fail to see that 

 in this condition it is material of the 

 greatest use and most profitable ex- 

 amination. Frustules are whole, fila- 

 ments are complete, the tissues soluble 

 in or destroyed by acids are left intact. 



These Mobile investigators have 

 pushed their examinations east and 

 west along the Gulf coast. Their 

 Pensacola material was commvmi- 

 cated to Mr. Peticolas, of Rich- 

 mond, and is put by him within the 

 reach of students generally. They 

 early shared their treasures with nu- 

 merous naturalists of the country, 

 among others with Mr. Mallory, of 

 Utica, and Mr. Van Brunt, of New 

 York. They cannot, of course, an- 

 swer all the calls that may be made 

 upon them, but we hope they may be 

 'induced to take steps which will put 

 their prepared material within the 

 reach of those who will see that an 

 ample supply of slides may he easily 

 attainable. As to the special steps 

 found useful in the acid cleaning. Dr. 

 Taylor's paper speaks for itself, and 

 will be found worthy of a careful 

 reading. He found the need of 

 modifying so many of the steps com- 

 monly prescribed in our treatises on 

 the subject, and so patiently and care- 

 fullv worked out every experiment of 

 his own to successful resiUts that the 



