1890.] MICROSCOPIOAL JOUmSTAL. 35 



A Search for Diatoms in Boston Harbor, in September, 1889. 



By WILLIAM A. TERRY, 



BRISTOL, CONN. 



Having long wished for an opportunity to collect in Boston Harbor, 

 I took advantage of a summer excursion, and packing my dredging ap- 

 paratus in a basket started off. Leaving the steamer at Pemberton w^e 

 hired a row-boat and commenced dredging, working between Pember- 

 ton and Hull on both sides, and through the steamboat channel, and 

 out into the deeper water near the Gut of Hull. 



The eel grass was rather troublesome and the bottom hard. In the 

 deep water the tidal currents, running in opposite directions, made it 

 difficult to manage the dredge, but after two hoin^s hard labor we had 

 gathered sufficient material to answer the purpose, and started on foot 

 to explore the outer beach. Pemberton Hotel is at the point of a long 

 and narrow tongue of land about five miles in length. The extremity 

 is hilly, but about three and a half miles of the lower end is a low sand- 

 bar not over thirty or forty rods in width, covered with cottages, hotels, 

 and all the usual accompaniments of a summer resort. A railroad of 

 some eight miles in length runs trains every few minutes during the 

 summer to the various hotels and over the mainland to the Old Colony 

 road. 



We found the outer beach above the cove to be composed of bould- 

 ers covered with rock weed, Fucus vesiculosus and F. iiodosus ; be- 

 yond this in deeper water was CJiondrus crispus^ and deeper still 

 might probably have been found the home of the red algae ; but as we 

 saw none to day we passed on, finding a few specimens of Cladophora 

 gracilis and several large bright green mats of Chcetofnorpha tortuosa^ 

 whose moniliform threads are so closely matted and interwoven that I 

 have never been able to separate them successfully so as to find their 

 actual length. 



Seeing nothing else of interest we went on to the cove at the upper 

 end of Nantasket Beach, which I was surprised to find entirely bare, 

 although at a former visit I had found it loaded with sea-weed. And 

 here may I be pardoned for a digression to relate some incidents of 

 that former visit, as it illustrates some of the tribulations of a collector. 

 I had started for Nahant, but finding the boat had been taken oft 

 the previous day I hurried to the Nantasket landing just in time to 

 catch the boat as it was leaving. After starting I made inquiries and 

 found this was the last trip of the boat for the season, and that it would 

 not return, leaving me stranded sixteen miles from the city with the 

 hotels all closed, the railroad depot locked up and barricaded with 

 rails, and no one around who appeared to know anything. However, 

 collecting was my object, and I started on the weary tramp over three 

 and a half miles of sand to the cove. Here I found an immense de- 

 posit of sea-weed, which I estimated at hundreds, perhaps thousands 

 of tons, consisting of the great Laminaria^ the sea colendar, with 

 Laminaria longicruris^ Lafninaria digitata^^ Chorda Jiluni^ Rhody- 

 7nenia pahnata and small fronds of Delesseria sinuosa and Ptilota 

 serrata. Unfortunately these, although evidently young, were not 

 brilliant in color. 



Returning, I got in at one of the deserted hotels by promising not to 

 call for anything to eat. I did, however, manage to get a slice of bread 



