Diatoms. 
What They Are, and Where They Are Found. 
BY H. B. WITTON, SR. 
Read before the Hamilton Association November 20th, 1908. 
T the usual meetings of our Association we enjoy an 
interchange of opinion, on the subject matter of 
whatever paper is read. But at the first meeting 
for the season, the cathedra address of the President is wel- 
comed, without question or comment. That is the usual 
procedure in societies like this ; and is withal a courteous 
usage I shall not infringe. If I follow in the wake of our 
President, it is at his own request ; and I submit at his 
wish a short account of some forms of plant life, which if 
everywhere abundant, are not generally known, as they are 
too small to be seen without a microscope. 
Unicellular vegetable life is strewn all over the globe. 
There are countless myriads of such organisms. They 
exist in numbers the human mind can no more adequately 
imagine, than it can form an idea of the total sand-grains 
of the desert, or water-drops in the ocean. Vet for ages 
their existence was nearly unknown to man. But as they 
play, and always have played a notable part in the great 
continuous drama of life and death everywhere enacted in 
the world, they have claims on our attention. 
Among these multitudinous forms of vegetable life, 
none has had greater attraction for Naturalists than the 
DIATOMACEH. I speak of these organisms as of the vege- 
table kingdom, for that is the place in nature’s scale 
modern science assigns them. Still, for half a century 
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