1897] MICROSCOPICAL JOURNAL. 233 



members of the order Acarina are easily secured and pre- 

 served either alive as aquarium objects which will prove 

 very interesting- with their brilliant colors, odd forms and 

 lively dispositions, or preserved with a corrosive subli- 

 mate solution, or in a mixture of g-lycerine,2parts, absolute 

 alcohol 1 part, 2 per cent acetic acid (g-lacial) 2 parts, and 

 distilled water 3 parts. 



The writer will g-ladly give any aid in this study to those 

 requesting- it, either through identifications, or hints about 

 collecting- and studying- the group. He will also deem it a 

 g-reat favor if any observer who secures the specimens but 

 does not care for them will forward them to his address ; 

 or, if desired, he will collect in other g-roups in exchang-e 

 for water-mites. Robt. H. Wolcott, f^incoln. Neb. 



DIATOMS. 



Diatoms from Redondo Beach. — The bed upon the 

 Pacific coast, 18 miles south-west from Los Ang-eles, CaL, 

 from which this deposit was obtained, occurs at points 

 from Redondo northward to Monterey and possibly farther. 

 It has not always been found as rich as this waif, nor as 

 the deposit in situ at Redondo. 



This bed may be considered the counterpart of the 

 g-reat fossil diatom bed buried beneath the Atlantic coastal 

 plain from New Jersey southward. The g-eolog-ical ag-e of 

 the Atlantic bed is now well known to be Miocene. The 

 ag-e of the Pacific coastal bed the writer has not as yet been 

 able satisfactorily to ascertain, but it is probably either 

 Miocene or Pliocene. The Atlantic coastal diatom bed 

 dips very slightly and reg-ularly toward and under the 

 ocean; the Pacific coastal bed has been disturbed and up- 

 heaved from its orig-inal position, and sometimes dips quite 

 steeply and nearly vertically, thoug-h generally also toward 

 the ocean it borders. Liowis Woor,:\iAx. 



Distribution of Diatoms.— Diatoms are found in both 

 marine and fresh waters, the specific forms being- mainlv 

 different in each. Both marine and fresh water diatoms 

 occur in the fossil state. They fre(|uently form a consid- 



