108 THE AMERICAN MONTHLY [March 



Diatomology exists. It is a science which nevertheless has 

 not received the unanimous sanction of learned men, for in the 

 best treatises of Botany there is scarcely any mention of Diatoms 

 and of their importance in Nature. 



The study of Algse in general, of Mosses, Fungi, and of Lich- 

 ens, is honored everywhere. There is not a university, a 

 faculty, or a large school, that does not reckon among its savants 

 those who occupy themselves with the different branches of 

 cryptogamic botany ; but of Diatoms, none ! — at least in France, 

 for among foreigners I could mention many, among whom are 

 two of our collaborators. 



The reasons that I have heard given as an excuse for this 

 neglect appears to me so ill-founded that they are hardly worth 

 noticing ; some of them even appear to me to be only the ex- 

 pression of one who will not discuss the question. 



In our last number I mentioned the observation made by 

 Prof. P. T. Cleve, of Upsala, on the identity of the species found 

 on the coast of Greenland and on the north of Asia, giving rise 

 to the idea of a current between the two opposite points, and 

 thus aiding the solution of a hydrographical problem. 



To-day, by the reading of a brochure having the title, Pre- 

 liminary Report on the Physical Geography of the Littorian 

 Sea, by Henry Munthe (a work published in the Bulletin of the 

 Geological Society of Upsala, No. 3, Vol. IL, 1894), I have seen 

 with pleasure that at length a geological savant, not content to 

 borrow from Palaeontology for proofs in aid of his deductions, 

 relating to the successive changes to which the Baltic Sea has 

 been subjected, has appealed to Diatomology by requesting our 

 colleague. Prof. P. T. Cleve, to study the species contained in 

 tlose beds which present distinct characters of these transfor- 

 mations, so that he may be able to add another proof to those 

 which he has already obtained. 



Already for some time researches and comparative studies 

 have been undertaken by a certain number of diatomists with 

 this object in view, and I am certain that from these studies the 

 importance of Diatomology will result, and that one day they 

 will place it in the first rank. 



The recent labors of Dr. P. Miguel have evidently contri- 

 buted much to this end, in offering to diatomists new methods 



