DISCOVERY OF TEIPOLI, 



OR, — 



POLISHING POWDER, NEAR ST. JOHN, 



DR. L.G ALLISON'S LECXrUE BEFORE THE NATIRAL HISTOHY SOCIETV 



OF NEW BRUNSWICK, Dh^SCRIBING THE ORtiANISMS 



WHICH PRODUCE IT, 



AND 



MR. O. F. MATTHEWS' REMARKS ON THE USES TO WHICH THIS 

 SUBSTANCE IS APPLIED IN THE ARTS. 



A FEW WORDS ABOUT DIATOMS, 



(RiiroRR THK Natl'raj. History Socikty of N. B., SrJ May, 1881.) 



Laimks anh GlCNrLRHBN :— I am glad to be 

 able to iiHe thix old familiar furcn of addreti* 

 to-nitiht, and I hope that the day may soon 

 come when we shall have ladies amongst uh 

 not only as guefttH but aUo ax fellow-tnemberB 

 and co-workers. I cnuld have wished to be a 

 little better prepared than I am to do justice 

 to th3 nncasion, but the fact is that the gentle- 

 man who was to have addressed you this even- 

 ing has been unavoidably prevented from 

 doing Ko, and I hav4 been a><ku<l, at somewhat 

 •hort notice, to supply his place. Under 

 these circuumtances I have conclud' d to call 

 your attention to a few facts in connexion 

 with the minute vegetable organisms known as 

 Diatomaceie or Diatoms. 



Perhapii it will not be altogether superfluous 

 if I l)ei(in by telling you what these diatoms 

 are. They are very minute organisms ranging 

 in siie perhaps from about 1-200 to 1-3000 of 

 an inch, and composed of a minute jelly-like 

 Rul>stance of a yeliowish-brown color, enclosed 

 in a self-secreted transparent case of silica. 

 This case is symmetrical and of a regular 

 geometrical figure, variously and often moat 

 beautifully nirrked upon its surface. I have 

 a pleasant personal reminiscence connected 

 with these markings, for it was a sense of their 

 beauty as displayed in one of the commonest 

 marine (otom ( Ooscinoditcus), that first turned 

 my attention when a junior student at college. 





to diatiims and the microscope, and laid the 

 founrlation of an acquaintance with both, 

 which.I hare cultivated with constantly in> 

 creaHing pleasure ever since. The number, 

 the beauty and the variety of the different 

 forms of diatoms are almost infinite. In the 

 scale of classification they form perhaps the 

 nearest approach that exists to a connecting 

 link between the animal and vegetable 

 kingdoms. When first examined they were 

 almost universally held to be animals and 

 there are a few naturalists who are still in 

 clined to so consider them, though it is not 

 easy to soe why, for the power of automatio 

 motion in which lies their sole affinity to the 

 animal kingdom has long been known to exist 

 also in the vegetable. In all other respects 

 (such as (heir more or less regular geometrical 

 sha{)ee, their living entirely upon inorganic 

 nutriment, as well as their manner of assimi' 

 lating it by endosmose and exosmose instead of 

 by prehension, their lack of any differentiated 

 organs, Sic.,) their characters ai-e eminently 

 vegetable and refer them to the Protophyta or 

 lowest division of that kingdom. This fact is 

 opposed to that form of the evolution theory 

 which arranges all organised beings in a pro* 

 gressively ascending series from the simplest to 

 the most complex, for if this were really the 

 case we ought to find the vegeUble kingdom 

 approximating most nearly to the animal, not 

 through one of its simplest and lowest forms, 

 but through its highest and most elaborat*. 



