1900] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 155 



are dark, peat will often yield nice Bacillaria. But do not 

 despair, try and try again. Out of one hundred gather- 

 ings for fossil Bacillaria perhaps fifty will yield good re- 

 sults. The other fifty is sand, fine or coarse, mud, and 

 clay — most common of all. 



The Study of Little Things. 



ARTHUR M. EDWARDvS, M. D. 



I was reminded of the diflBculty of studying the Ba- 

 cillaria aside from viewing the Diatom shells by what I 

 read in Dr. M. C. Cooke's Introduction to the Study of the 

 Fungi where he says that "the only safe course in the 

 study of Fungi or of any other of the multitudinous or- 

 ganisms, whether animal or vegetable, with which the earth 

 teems, is to proceed step by step from the general to the 

 particular by a systematic sequence. In a few cases it 

 may be possible by reference to figures, or from inci- 

 dental circumstances to attach a name with some accura- 

 cy, but such an act is of no service — it touches nothing, it 

 avails nothing, it is only a sham, a delusion and a snare. 

 The only road to knowledge is a rough one, but it must 

 be traversed, and all its difiiculties surmounted ; there can 

 be no creeping upwards by a by-path, for all the by-paths 

 end at a precipice. The most we can do is to tread firm- 

 ly, walk circumspectly and look upwards. The study of 

 Fungi is not an easy one, and cannot be got over empir- 

 ically, but with application and perseverance the difficul- 

 ties which seemed at first appalling become less so at 

 every step." And it is so with learning anything natural 

 or artificial ? We think we know everything but soon we 

 know that we know nothing. We learn by unlearning. 

 We know by learning how much there is to learn. Let us 

 have patience with those who think they know anything 

 and help them to learn the little there is to know. So Ba- 

 cillaria are not learned by learning the names that have 

 been given to them, for those are merely passing things. 



